


Hydrangeas

by Bawgdan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Drama, Drama & Romance, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Relationship(s), Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2018-10-25 12:59:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 67,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10764750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bawgdan/pseuds/Bawgdan
Summary: It's safe to fall if you keep your eyes closed. Be sure to hold your breath so that the impact doesn't break your soul apart.





	1. Purple Hydrangea

_**“your body is a museum of natural disasters. can you grasp how stunning that is”~Rupi Kaur** _

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It was easier to ignore the concept of destiny– _karma_ , especially when she could sort through the many different meanings given to petals. Flowers didn't grow with the purpose of replacing sentences. No living man had ever stopped to ask a daisy if it felt innocent. And who decided that an amaryllis should represent beauty?

And often meanings changed, sometimes contrary to what was once believed. _People are so fickle and that's what makes everyone so easy to figure out_. There was no such thing as luck or fate. Ino made her mind up about it the day Sasuke revealed that he wasn't who she thought he was– rather who everyone had expected him to be.

_Calla lilies._

As she passes under the flickering of lights and closing shutters, Calla lilies struck her to be worthiest of the most beautiful title. Their bell shape reminds her of a cup, and the child in her would daydream about filling its insides with stars.

Ino smiles mournfully at her childhood. She's huddling home with an armful of things that won't let her forget that somewhere along the way she lost her sense of fun. Milk, bread, and a bag of bananas. She hasn't learned how to properly shop for a meal. Part of her doesn't want to because it would indicate just how old she's getting.

Home isn't far, but she is feeling the day on her calves. Standing for hours and faking a smile as women picked over flowers for their weddings took a chunk out of her. Not only was she nearing the middle of her twenties, but she hadn't ever been in love.

_"Ino, you're too beautiful to be single."_

_"A man would be lucky to have you."_

_"What–you're single!? I bet you're secretly crazy!"_

All of the statements and the variations of them had never been a lie. She knows she is too beautiful to settle. If he doesn't have perfect teeth then why should he have the privilege to enjoy her perfect smile? And yes, she has never denied being somewhat insane. _Particular_ is more befitting of her personality. What she doesn't understand is why she is met with such disapproval. She knows what she wants and if waiting for years, kissing a bunch of frogs would lead her to her prince then it was worth it. All women should be that way and to hell with anyone that deems it vain.

Her sandal snags a protruding edge of the pavement and she stumbles. The milk carton slips from her arms, exploding on impact with a stress-inducing pop. She loses her bananas to the dirty curb as well, and a moment from earlier that morning replays itself in her conscience as she ogles the catastrophe seeping between her toes.

Carnations. They never sell well because they are assumed to be too common.

 _"White carnations are symbolic of love. They're prettier than white roses if you ask me and far less cliché,"_ Ino had suggested with an eagerness.

 _"But they look so cheap– like those yellow weeds that grow in the summer,"_ the bride-to-be sneered and her wrinkly mother agreed. Further encouragement to give the carnations a chance was promptly struck down with viciousness. The bride had decided on a gross amount of white and pale pink roses.

Ino scrambles to pick up what she can salvage– two bananas and her loaf of bread still neatly wrapped. She couldn't fault that woman and her mother though. _Never settle for what you don't really want._   Even if it's ridiculous. That's what her father used to say and she wonders if he ever realized just how deep she has carved it in her heart.

"Ya know littering is a fine?" A familiar voice clucks at her but she is too busy staring at the milk veining its way through the cement.

"I'm not littering. I stubbed my toe." She pinches at the soiled paper bag, the drops of milk spluttering against the squashed bananas. Her brightly painted toe nails are sticky from the waste.

"Well what happened to all that stealth, Ino?"

Ino doesn't have to look at Shikamaru's face. She can hear the smile in his voice.

"I guess not everyone can sit on their ass all day and still be you, right?" With a sigh of defeat, she drops the bag back onto the ground.

"I don't sit on my ass all day. Work smart not hard."

She was wrong, he isn't exactly smiling– but his lips are pulled back in a smug frown. A cigarette peeking from behind his ear. Ino doesn't give him a reply. She simply feigns an attractive leer, her nostrils flaring sweetly.

"It's been a while," he starts when the silence becomes too awkward.

"Well we aren't exactly friends."

"Were we ever really, Ino?" He rasps her name, but there's a vastness on his tongue. She really looks at him. The nocturnal light above them only illuminates half of his body. The right side of his face is an endless shadow. His uniform looks worn. The hem of his vest is frayed.

"Not really. No. Especially now. Our fathers would be disappointed." To her surprise it isn't that hard to admit. Another silence emphasizes the space and time between them. Ino cradles her loaf of bread and the surviving bananas. Shikamaru reaches for the cigarette behind his ear. Death was supposed to bring people together, but the prospect of picking up where their families left off is painful to consider. Or perhaps she has been projecting her own insecurities onto Shikamaru and Choji.

"I take that back. We were once friends." Her stomach growls.

"Not very good ones." Shikamaru lights his cigarette and quietly observes her. He has always had this intense gaze– never subtle about his ability to dissect the tiniest shift in one's posture.

"Stop trying to read my mind!" Ino snaps at him but she also becomes hyper aware of how she stands.

"Don't flatter yourself. There's not much going on up there anyway..." He laughs and she starts to walk away.

"Goodnight, Shikamaru." Ino huffs as her stomach twists itself, but Shikamaru stands in front of her with his hands up in surrender. The bread squishes in half when she bumps into his chest.

"Hey. _Heeey_. Let's start over." His eyes are still heavy tools digging into her. She looks at his forehead instead. A lump forms in her throat because he would soon realize that she's still too weak of an opponent even as he relinquishes the upper hand.

"When was our last real conversation?" The cigarette wobbles between his lips.

"Three seconds ago," she replies tersely.

"Ino...humor me a little less," he inhales.

"I don't know, Shikamaru."

"Exactly." He plucks the cigarette from his mouth and a waterfall of smoke spills from his nostrils. She drags her eyes to his and feels herself float into their darkness. Above them, speckles of stars, paper lamps, streetlights, and the occasional nosy civilian peeking out of a bright window.

"Let me walk you home." He slides the cigarette back into his mouth, slowly blinking down at her. Patient. She's only ever remembered him this way. Even-tempered and never in a hurry. Ino could stand there, not answer him for an hour, and he would still anticipate a yes or no. She licks her lips and shrugs.

"Fine. Whatever." Ino gently shoves a hand in his hard chest.

"Gotta make sure you don't litter."

"So you're not concerned about _my_ safety?"

x

x

Walking her home had turned into a wrong turn in the heat of a disagreement. Her flushed cheeks and his sly demeanor led them to that familiar ramen shop. _Where memories rose from the aroma of the broth._ Ino doesn't talk when she eats and Shikamaru smiles as she shovels the noodles into her mouth.

What he doesn't know is that she hasn't eaten in a while. She hasn't felt like it and she wants to retain her petite waist. The ramen fills her with a warmth she had been missing– giving her heartburn that makes her dizzy when she tries to burp.

"You're not going to get any yourself?" She licks the corner of her mouth and looks at him. His amused glare reminds her to straighten herself. Ino clears her throat and slaps a hand against her chest.

"You haven't been eating."

Ino doesn't know if she should react to the audacity of his voice or be mad at the truth. All of her wit fizzles out like old fireworks. She could say what he expects or she could completely surprise him and lose the battle.

"I haven't had the time." She sucks in a breath and settles down her chopsticks.

"You work in a flower shop and there won't be a holiday for some time now." Shikamaru lights another cigarette. She scowls.

"People like summer weddings," she cants, narrowing her piercing blue eyes.

"This place is small. You can count the weddings for the rest of the year on one hand." Shikamaru coughed.

"How would you know?" She leans in and jabs a finger in his arm.

"The answers are always in plain sight, Ino. It's just a matter of how hard you're looking." He blows smoke in her face and she heaves.

x

x

And he walks her home in complete silence. Shikamaru finds himself starving for words but the way she casts her eyes down forces him to suppress his melancholy. His heart is squeezing away at the death of their fathers and he wants to ask her if she's been able to sleep at night. He sleeps but not well. Mourning has been quite the process for him. It is strange knowing everything else but the mystery of where his father went. It haunts him like a complicated math problem. There's an answer but it's hidden under all the numbers. _But numbers are infinite._

Shikamaru isn't scared of dying but he's scared of not knowing what void he'd become trapped in when the time comes.

They make it to the stairs that lead to her front door.

"Thank you..." Ino clears her throat. She's felt the heaviness of their empty walk. He follows her up the steps with an unawareness.

"No problem. I felt bad watching you try to salvage those bananas." His voice has thinned out but Ino assumes he's just tired.

She gives him a real smile and he forgets the snotty little girl that used to disgust him.

"It's very gentlemanly of you–stacking up on all your good karma." Her pony tail splits across her shoulders as she digs around in her bag for keys.

"I'm always a gentleman." He adjusts his vests.

"Since when?" She shoves her keys into the lock and the door clicks open.

"Hey...Ino..."He begins but she's distracted by the light switch when she steps inside. Ino hums a soft 'shit' when the light doesn't come on and stumbles into the darkness of her apartment.

"Shikamaruuu." She whines and tosses her bag against something unstable. Ino's house smells like a burnt out candle. It's an old lingering sweetness like candy.

"Shut the door behind you," she calls to him from a distant dark room.

Shikamaru nudges the door shut with his foot, hands buried deep in his pockets. An anxiousness swells in his chest as he scans the darkness. The kitchen window is open, moonlight sprinkles in and along the sink faucet. Drips of water like tiny diamonds peck against a dirty bowl. From what he can make out, Ino is surprisingly tidy. Every window sill is shadowed by vases of varying size and flowers twisting into each other.

"Change my light bulb for me, Shika." Ino appears from a dimly lit space that he assumes is her bedroom. He can tell that she's barefoot as the balls of her feet pound against the wooden floor.

"That's what you got arms for." He sighs and she's like an apparition before him. Her eyes so blue that they absorb the faint moonlight creeping through the mini blinds.

"You're useless." She huffs and scatters about for something to stand on.

"You're troublesome and lazy." He's quick with his response.

Ino stops searching and floats toward him.

"Yet you still ended up spending your money on me. So who wins?" She jabs a finger in his chest and twists it like a dagger.

"Nobody wins." He says with a little more emotion and grabs her wrist. They say nothing for some time. She allows him to peel away her touch and their hands drop.

"My mom's a little upset that you don't come by anymore." Shikamaru's voice is small.

"Well..." There really isn't an excuse and she quickly closes her mouth. Ino silently thanks the higher powers that be for the blanket of darkness. He can't easily see her guilt. Maybe he felt it in the timbre of her voice but all that matters is that he can't _see_ her as a criminal.

"I mean I understand why you haven't, Ino." It's so dark and he doesn't know how to escape to the couch or a different corner, but he dips from her blue hazy stare. It's upsetting that he can still see her eyes in the dark.

"No no. You don't have to understand. I haven't been a good person lately." She folds her arms.

"Not seeing my mom doesn't make you a bad person." He stops himself from stubbing a toe.

"But it does and I'm not a very good person at all."

"Says who?" Shikamaru is louder in the dark– _or her mind is playing tricks._

"Says you. All the time."

"No I don't!"

"You do though. You always have. If you don't say it then it's how you look at me."

"Look at you like what!?" Shikamaru's hand finds the back of a chair and he slumps in it like a depressed flower without sunlight.

"Shikamaru, don't be obtuse!" She knows where to go and steps towards him. Clumsily grazing her hip against a table, she finds him in the looming shadows.

"Do you even know what that means!?" He slides his face into his palm.

"There it is! Whatever look you've got is the look I'm talking about!" She stumbles in front of him.

"I probably look tortured." He breathes a half-hearted laugh.

"Well, _Shikamaru_." The way she drags each syllable stirs him. He groans at his heightening sense of sound and rubs the bridge of his nose.

"If you're not going to help me change my light bulb then you're free to leave."

"Well I'm not going to help you change your stupid light bulb..." He slams his hands down on the arms of the chair before rising and Ino grabs him by his vest.

"You're such a jerk. Why are you such an asshole?" Her voice cracks. He swallows the urgency to call her stupid, but in what little he could make out of her face something in him knew better.

"I wouldn't be a jerk if you weren't such a vacant person." And that feels wrong to say but it's the best he can do. Ino doesn't let go of him and through the thick veil of night they stare at each other.  She makes a small noise as if she is about to speak, but decides against it. Ino lets go of him, her fingers running down the front pockets of his uniform vest.

"I'm not vacant." She whispers.

"Then who are you really, Ino?"

She's never been asked that before.

 _Marigold_. It's the flower of pain. Thick and vibrant. Gorgeous and easy to look at but underneath all of its petals there's untouched despair.

"You tell me." _Would it make her a coward if she admitted to not really knowing?_ Shikamaru is smart enough to see through her. She thinks sullenly– _maybe he already knows and is patronizing her_.

"Ino, I can't tell you who you are."

The light suddenly flickers on and her gaze dawns on him. A million things come to fruition as he beams back at her. His heart skips a beat when he understands that she's looking for an answer, but he's lost in how pretty she is. Ino has always been pretty but he doesn't know why it hits him like an aftertaste this time.

"You know everything else." She pleads. If he had to choose the most attractive part of her body it would be how her full lips anchor the entirety of her appeal.

"You're lonely." Shikamaru feels himself drifting into her growing sadness. "You always have been but it's only getting worse the older you get."

"You're right." She doesn't look away. He's the ship and her irises are the ocean, anticipating to devour him into her cold depths.

"I don't have to be right." He reaches and brushes back her bangs, running his hand through her scalp. The gesture loosens the hold of her pony tail, she draws herself into him and Shikamaru has practiced with enough women to _know_. He tangles his arms around the curve of her back and she raises herself to steal his soul. Ino catches his gasp in her mouth and Shikamaru is washed in a dizziness. In all of the years of their forced proximity he has never entertained the thought of kissing her. He wonders if he should've. It probably would have saved him from the shock of her tongue tracing his bottom lip.

She thinks deeply– _he smells like smoke_. The way his hands slide beneath her top, spilling her breasts, she can tell he's going to be a mistake, but what is one mistake compared to a closet of them?

They messily undress each other and there's a high that comes with picking away at their familiarities. What they _thought_ they knew unwinds with the discovery of how wide she can crack her hips and the river of his abdomen against her palms.

Shikamaru kisses like he's broken many hearts and Ino is different in that she's had her heart broken many times.

"How often do you do this, Shikamaru?" It's a strange question to ask, but she loves confrontation.

"If I told you we might not get too far." He smiles against her lips, creeping his hands at the sharp curve of her hip bone.

"You think I'm jealous?" Ino pulls away and feigns a glower.

"I **know** you're jealous." She's the most transparent person he knows. Ino is the type of girl that will make a man wait. She likes the idea of falling in love. Normally he doesn't go for the good-girl but she's different. All of her feels like home. Ino isn't a box to fill with his proclivities.

"Only a little bit." She doesn't want to understand what compels her to shake free from their knot and show him her back. Ino rests her hands against the coldness of her wooden table. Mirroring a vast valley of flourishing opportunity, she sprawls and bends herself like a wind kissed dandelion. Brushing aside unopened letters and bright pink pens. She arches her back like a sharp wave and a rises her hips.

"How often do _you_ do this, Ino?" All those years of not paying close attention to her collapse at his feet. He then accepts the epiphany that he's looked away on purpose. Her allure commands his vulnerability.

"Not often." Combing her fingers through her hair, she leers over a well defined shoulder. Her lips stop at a short simper.

Home calls. Time stops and makes the reproach of his own heart gentle. Little thumps like bubbles rising to top. Shikamaru reaches his hands for her hips, his fingers extending along her soft skin. Under the hotness of his touch she presses herself against his erection.

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	2. White Hydrangea

_Asphodel_ –six feet of regrets beneath the ground. Ino licks her lips and her secret stings her neck. The storefront bell chimes and she jumps from the bouquet of lilies. Instantly, her fingers crawl to touch the swollen hickey. Usually she greets with a prayer-like script that had been beaten into her at an early age, but for the past two days, Ino hasn't been able to properly form sentences. _Hellos_ remind her of Shikamaru's smile under a cape of smoke. _Goodbyes_ conjure up the wobbliness of the morning after.

The shower water is neither hot nor cold enough. She still feels him all over and inside. No matter how hard she scrubs between her fingers, the anticipation of his tongue is still there. There isn't an inch of her that hasn't been tainted and she can't help but feel like everyone else can see just how badly he has blemished her soul.

Ino wipes her damp hands along her skirt and chirps a tart 'Good Morning'.

The door slaps shut and the bell whistles again. Ino reties her hair, steps around the tall assortment of flowers, and her mouth breaks apart for more pleasantries until she meets the crystal glower of her patron.

They don't immediately pass niceties. Ino waits for Sakura to say something first. For one, she hasn't been able to gather up the rest of her soul to spit anything witty, and two, her thighs brushing together still has her dizzy. Sakura isn't as keen as Shikamaru, but she has always been able to sniff out Ino's insecurities.

Sakura's lips curl into a self-assured smile and she bends over to inhale a pot of yellow roses.

"Good morning to you too, Ino. "Sakura gently pinches a petal. Another wordless pull of minutes pass before Ino clears her throat.

"What's the occasion? If you don't mind me asking." Ino is sincere in her interest but hopes it's not another wedding. She can't stomach another persnickety bride and the cruel little girl that sits heavy in her chest doesn't want to be happy for Sakura.

Sakura stands up straight and crosses her arms. She tilts her head to the side and blinks five times, pale wisps of her bangs catch in her lashes. Her eyes roam from pinks, to blues, and greens that fade to yellow. Ino huffs and then Sakura clasps her hands at her cheeks.

"It's for one of my patients..."

Ino wonders if Sakura is intentionally avoiding eye contact. All of her well memorized quirks were lost to time. She can't remember what love or disappointment looks like in Sakura. Every smile looks the same.

"Oh...well..." Ino places her hands on her hips.

"He's got this thing for one of the medics– he's too ashamed to say anything himself." Sakura blows a strand of hair from her face.

Ino chokes on her own surprise and the butterflies in her stomach collapse.

"What does that have to do with you? Still haven't learned to mind your business?" She retorts but Sakura only shrugs. Her smile deepens and reveals the two dimples Ino had coveted for years.

"You've never been compelled to just do something nice for someone?" Sakura looks at her with pretty bewilderment. It's a completely defenseless stare. Glassy and vulnerable–the kind of look she supposed men liked falling for. It causes Ino's heart to skip a beat or two.

Sakura as a little girl fiddling away with origami birds dawns on her but it's a quick punch of nostalgia.

"Depends," Ino quips and rolls a shoulder.

"Well when you do, doesn't it just make you feel good?" Sakura always has subtle ways at making her feel bad. If it isn't the patronizing lightness in her eyes, it's the nerve of her smile.

Ino can't recall the last nice thing she has done, so her already tattered spirit shrinks before Sakura. Little does she know, Sakura is oblivious to her vicious train of thought.

"What do you suggest? For a man who's in love?" Sakura turns her attention back to the canopies of twisting vines and volume of overflowing vases. Ino's heart crawls into her throat.

"Um...well there are roses." She stands closer to her childhood friend and gestures.

"Roses are cliché." Sakura whines playfully.

"Honestly." Ino doesn't resist the urge to smile and hooks her arm with Sakura's, leading her to the copiousness of red carnations.

Ino's dislike for Sakura has blurred and warped itself like paranoia. She wants to ask Sakura, as she personally wraps her a bouquet with thin ribbons, if she felt the same way. Their history isn't vitriol.

But Ino sips from the glittery golden cup of her pride. She also fears that it's become one-sided, and no one ever wants to admit that they've been wrong. Especially for the vast majority of their life.

It's strange that she can't figure out how to say 'Bye' to Sakura. Someone who is more than an acquaintance. She can't find a perfect balance between authenticity and reservation, so she says nothing when Sakura murmurs a sweet 'Thank You'. Sakura notices her peculiar show of affection in her limp wave, but doesn't take it to heart.

Is there really enough time for redemption? Will fate allow her to live long enough in this world to fix what her soul had set onto Sakura?

Ino drops her eyes into her wet palms. There's a clipped leaf stuck to her thumb and dust of petals along the counter.

Maybe. Right now she isn't ready. Life has already shirked too many responsibilities on her. She's not prepared to mend spoiled relationships. Is it bad if she never grows into the type of person she should be?

The bell rings and the door gently slips shut.

"Hey you!" Sakura's laughter is muffled.

Ino lifts her attention from her hands and leans over the counter to see if she recognizes the potential patron. At the crux of squinting through the narrow parts of leaves and sunflowers, she hears Shikamaru before she can see him. She almost cuts her wrists against the sharp edge of the counter as she drops back on her feet.

The bell rings twice and the door swings open. He wheezes something nice to Sakura on his way in and Ino's fingers curl to fists.

"We're closed!" Her jaws are swollen.

"The sign says otherwise." He holds out his arms and shrugs. The door pitters to a close behind him and the bell gives a slight hum. Shikamaru takes four steps and Ino points at him, stabbing her finger in the air.

"Nope! No loitering! Get out!"

"Ino..." Shikamaru dares to sound reasonable and suddenly her hickey feels like a battle wound. She reaches under the counter for an empty flower pot and chucks it at his feet. Ino wouldn't have missed if he wasn't so sharp in his movements.

"What. The. Hell..." He breathes a shy away from laughter and raises his hands with petty arrest. Shikamaru chews his bottom lip as he scans the broken bits around his feet.

"You know, Ino...women usually ask me to stay." And he isn't sure if he should be enthralled or terrified by her passionate display of affection.

"Shikamaru, please leave." Her voice hitches.

"Is this how you treat all of your customers?" He scoots a jagged piece with his foot and steadies towards her.

"Be real. You're not here to make me money."

"You don't know that. I like to buy flowers for pretty girls."

On a normal day, she would have a mouthful of poison for him, but he holds that indignant part of her captive. Out of all the people in the world that she should desire...

"It wasn't supposed to be this way." She can't look at him as he walks behind the counter.

"What way is it supposed to be?" He has his hands in his pocket.

"What do you want from me, Shikamaru?"

And such a simple question befuddles him. He doesn't show his sudden witlessness, but it constricts his throat. _What is he doing here?_ He thinks to himself.

"I just thought about you is all." In truth, she's been on his mind ever since. The way she buries herself beneath a pillow when she sleeps has haunted him. It's the last thing he remembers before this very moment. Shikamaru's eyes fall to her mouth as she slowly turns her head to gaze at him. He recalls her drowsy moans when he barely touched her.

Shikamaru's eyes widen with discovery.

Ino wants to vocally express herself but what's the point when he can read the slightest shift of her eyes? She can't lie and running only validates what hasn't been said. Shikamaru is the wrong person in every way she can conceive. She's never been able to make sense of the cat and mouse analogy. A mouse is as good as dead once it's gained the attention of a hungry cat.

"That's funny. You haven't thought much about me in years." Ino tilts her head. Shikamaru doesn't have an answer for it.

"Now that we've had sex I just _cross_ your mind now?" She wrinkles her lips and cuts him a sweeping gander.

"Yea. Something like that..." He says with tempered intensity.

"How many girls has that worked on?" Her entire body is on fire, a mixture of unchecked rage and ardor. If she weren't so starved for the flavors of his bad habit, she'd burst into tears.

"Zero." His lips are drenched with conviction.

There's that moment before two people realize that they're on the edge of consuming each other. Shikamaru removes his hands from his pockets and Ino wants to be that **_one_** and only girl. Their bodies are acquaintances and their hearts are strangers. History doesn't mean a damn thing in adulthood. Picking scabs on hot cement can't be compared to taking various parts of each other in their mouths. It's different and dangerous. Worse than beating each other up with sticks. Band-aids can't hold a broken heart together.

Ino's body tells him that she isn't going to make the first move– and he's an idiot if he ever thinks she will. Shikamaru yields to Ino because that's the only way he can have her.

He reaches for her, his hands sliding behind her neck as they collide into a messy kiss. Ino's lower back presses against the edge of the counter, she gasps and in response, he brings his hands down to roll up her skirt. Shikamaru cups the softness of her ass and lifts her on top of the counter.

As he drinks away the remains of her sanity, she tangles her quivering legs around him.

"I want you inside of me." She sings into his mouth.

"I know." Shikamaru finds ways to needle at her demands. He anticipates slipping inside of her but not in the way she wants. Ino attempts to anchor him down with her but he's chosen the path of his hands. He frees himself from the trap of her lips and she liquefies along the counter. Her fingers tip over a cheap vase. The crescendo of its ruin like a mighty orgasm.

Shikamaru descends between her legs, dragging his tongue down her thigh. She's not wearing any underwear and it causes him to break his string of fluttery kisses with a smile. Ino's toes curl at the heat of his breath at her lower lips.

"Are you always this prepared, Ino?" He breathes before sliding his tongue against her clit.

"Shut. Up." She's loses at the sound of her name and expires at the motion of his mouth. With an arch of her back, she attempts to flee from the cataclysm between her legs, but Shikamaru's hands bar down on her hips.

 _Here lies the death of her frigidness_. She can no longer hide behind walls of ice. There can never be an honest rejection from her. He sips and swallows all the ways she can say 'No'. From here and into the future, Shikamaru has her like a knife wedged deeply into flesh.

_They can never take a step back._

Ino cries an ugly prayer, but there's no god here. She closes her eyes and carries her hands to hide her face from the thought of angels peering down at her pleasurable misdeed.

Shikamaru plunges his tongue into the pulse of her walls. She scatters his name– let's it hang like  forbidden fruit in an empty garden.

When he's satisfied, he pulls away and she suspires at the immediate coldness that follows after. Ino sits up with shaky arms. Numb between her legs, she opens her mouth to speak but Shikamaru drags her into another kiss.

"Why did you stop?" She likes the way she tastes.

"I've got somewhere to be." His voice drips like honey into her mouth.

"It's not more important than me." Ino challenges him.

"But it is– a good employee doesn't fuck around on the job." He smothers her with a final kiss that incites her with faltering rage.

"Shikamaru..." She coolly demands him but he drags the back of his hand against his lips and walks away.

"I really like being in good graces with your mom." His feet crunch the shattered flower pot. Ino viciously slides from the countertop and follows after him, the slickness of her thighs rubbing together in her approach.

"She's not here!" Ino grabs him by the wrist as his other hand presses the door open. The bell whistles.

"I'll just see you later!" His gives her a toothy smile and plays up her craziness.

A mouthful of swears rolls in her throat but as if the devil himself had become sickened by her undoing, she spots her mother sauntering up the pathway with bags from the market.

"How late is later?" Her stare is pointed.

"Whenever I wake up from my nap." He pulls away from her, going out of his way to strike a conversation with his second mother.

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"You're awfully quiet." Choji coughs with a mouthful of pork. Shikamaru hasn't touched his plate. He watches the smoke flutter to the colorful ceiling and sinks back into the booth's cushion. The weight of Ino still sits on his hips.

"When do I ever have much to say?" Shikamaru ashes the cigarette into his untouched tea.

"You're not the only one that's good at social cues, Nara." Choji points his chopsticks at him, closing one eye as if Shikamaru's heart is the target.

"You don't say?" Shikamaru rolls his eyes.

"You don't wanna be here," Choji says pragmatically, stabs another piece of pork and shovels it into his mouth.

"Damn. You got me..." Shikamaru brings the cigarette to his lips and inhales dramatically.

"You ain't have to come. It wouldn't have hurt my feelings!" Choji laughs over the clatter of dishes and toppling bottles of sake.

"Nowhere else better to be, my friend."

They share a moment of silence. Choji stops picking at his food and squints as he thinks about just how much he doesn't know about Shikamaru in the passing years. There hasn't been enough time to simply, and the time they can afford they spend it drunk.

"How's Temari?" It's the first thing that comes to mind. Shikamaru suppresses his initial reaction and hides his scowl under a swirling cloud of smoke. He gathers a distant pensive look.

"I'm sure she's fine." He retorts gently, popping his jaw.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I'm pretty positive that she's ok."

"You're shit at being passive aggressive."

A waitress drops an entire meal but Choji keeps his eyes pinned on Shikamaru, stuffing his face with a roll.

"We aren't together anymore. It's been a while." Shikamaru gives a heavy shrug. He feels like he's lying. It hasn't stopped feeling surreal.

"What happened?"

Shikamaru drops the rest of his cigarette into his tea cup, leans against the table with his elbows, and holds up his index fingers– he presses them together.

"Sometimes, people just _grooooow_ apart." He separates his fingers, reflecting dilapidating unity.

Choji's throat rolls as he swallows. The humor in Shikamaru's face is colorless and he feels bad for him. _What a shitty way to cope with real things_ –Choji muses.

"Damn." It's all he can say. He picks up another roll.

" _Damn_." Shikamaru echoes, finally picking up his chopsticks.

It didn't feel right to spill his guts about what happened with Temari. In truth, Shikamaru hasn't really processed their break-up. They didn't spiral into cruel words nor end with bitterness. Sometimes, in the middle of cold showers, he remembers her mouth around him in the morning. There are dates like pockets of freckles at his wrist. He's spent more time searching for her in other women than forgetting, but they have all failed in comparison. Until two nights ago when he found himself not wanting to brush away Ino's toes from his calves. She's been the first he's held throughout the night after Temari.

Shikamaru slides the sliced pork into his mouth. Chews slowly and muddles _What Next_?

"Have you talked to Ino?" Choji accidentally reads his mind.

"I talked to her mom."

Shikamaru tells half-truths because he sucks at lying. Revealing a little bit of the truth is better than acknowledging the weight of water.

When he tries to leave, Choji tempts him with a shot. A single glass always turns into a dozen, but when Choji is not convinced that Shikamaru has burned away enough of himself, six more glasses roll across the table. It's a game he always lets Choji win.

 _'Unwind.'_ His friend always says in the middle of their fourth shot. Little does Choji know, Shikamaru is looser than he lets on.

When Shikamaru finally escapes from their sweaty stupor, he makes a point to say good-bye. It's a good habit he's picked up since the war. The only good habit to come out of the madness. Choji hesitates because he's used to Shikamaru disappearing like a magician.

"Later?" Choji's face is pink with a boyish giddiness.

"Absolutely." Shikamaru wobbles three steps back.

They drift apart into the early morning streets and 'later' dawns on Shikamaru. He mouths a silent 'fuck' and brings his hands to cup his ears– to hush up the ringing of the morning birds.

But as he continues to search for home, he realizes the significance of Ino in his drunken thoughts.

"Damn..." Shikamaru rasps at the glowing epiphany of what he missed out on.

 _Unwind_. Choji has said many times. Shikamaru stops walking as the sun peeks above a blurry building. Beaming on his face, it feels like the dip of Ino's spine against his cheeks.

_Unwind. Unwind. Unwind._

Shikamaru Nara hazily watches the sunrise. Stares straight into its swollen brightness and it spots his vision with stars.

_Unwind._

There's a knot in his chest.

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She can't stop rubbing her knees together, curling and uncurling her toes. _How long has it been?_ A full day has gone by and she hasn't seen Shikamaru. Her eyes jump from her vague reflection in the glass of orange juice to the clock on her mother's wall.

"Ino?" Sai has called her name three times.

"Ino?!" Her mother joins him and Ino plummets from the clouds.

"Yes!" She snaps from the fall.

To break her morning haze, she snatches up the glass and takes a long gulp. She gags a little from at the taste of mouthwash mixing with the citric acid.

"She didn't sleep well last night." Sai looks at her like he always does. Curiously with longing. As if she has been exactly what he's searched for. A month ago, she liked being the object of his desire, but today it dries her throat with guilt. There's no more of herself to give to him. Shikamaru had greedily eaten all of her essence and taken the seeds with him.

It's been a month and she should be happy that he's back in one piece, but what she thought was 'love' had been destroyed within seconds.

 _'You probably shouldn't do it if you have to think about. And if you have to think about it, it's probably not good for you.'_ In the words of her father. Ino didn't stop to think about whether she should or shouldn't let Shikamaru gut her. Yet she's spent many nights contemplating the nature of her intimacy with Sai.

Ino nibbles on a piece of bacon to distract herself from the daydream of her father twisting and turning in his grave.

"Maybe she will sleep better now that you're back." Her mother adores Sai. Probably more than she ever has. Ino crosses her legs and Sai slips a hand on her thigh. It's not the same anymore and she has to fight the urge to move away.

Sai is worse than Shikamaru when it comes to understanding body language. Ino unravels herself. Maybe it's good that she hasn't heard from Shikamaru. She can jump out this window of opportunity and fix herself.

"Yea. A month is a long time." She gives Sai a plain smile.

"Have you fallen back into your old bad habits?" Sai sees the vastness of her eyes– he reads that she's not focused. It's even more obvious when she hesitates.

"Mhm. Are you gonna beat them back out of me?" She anxiously takes another sip of orange juice, batting her lashes. Sai is perplexed but catches on the moment her mother strangles on her coffee.

"Ino! Mind your manners!" Her mother gently slaps her on the knuckles.

When Sai looks away and her mother carries on with existing in her own head, Ino burns out like a candle. Slumping a little in her seat, her stomach loses its appetite.

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A month is a long time to be away from someone, but it only took minutes to strangle the life out of everything they'd work so hard for. On paper, Sai is perfect. God had truly sculpted a masterpiece, but art can be soulless– nice to look at but shallow. With his smile, if looks could kill, his hands would be sanguine with the hearts of a hundred women.

It's not real though. There are times when his smile feels nice, sometimes it unfolds warmth, but she often wonders– how much is the feeling simply projected? Sai's eyes are shiny blades. Sleek in the reflection of whoever dares to stare into him.

Ino hasn't gained any comfort from not knowing how he really feels or if he feels anything at all. She's only won his hands soothing her ego.

On paper, at a first glimpse, Sai is perfect but if one takes time to read in between the lines, he's terrifying.

His _'I love yous'_ feel like sand spilling from her fingers.

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"So we're just supposed to pick up from where we left off?" Underneath her smirk, the foundation of her morals is crumbling. Her mother walks ahead of them as they ascend the crowds of bright kimonos and floating confetti.

"That's what I had hoped for." The wind splits his bangs. Ino hangs on him like she always does but her hold is tighter than usual. He grimaces and it brings about an absent prettiness in his eyes.

"You get to vanish into the wilderness for a month and I'm supposed to stay the same?" She whispers loud enough for him to hear.

"I didn't vanish into the 'wilderness'...and you seem the same. Dramatic– is that the word? You're still very dramatic." He looks down at her.

There's no use in starting an argument with him. He never responds the way she wants him to, bursting with romantic distress. Whenever she attempts to sink her teeth and gnaw at a layer of his skin, he barely flinches.

 _So that's how you feel, Ino?_ It's become an insufferable mantra. She hates it.

"Is that how you feel, Sai? I'm still dramatic?" They stop together. The crowd steps around them like ants avoiding a puddle of water. Sai narrows his eyes at her, searching for the proper answer. He's kissed her enough to notice trick questions.

"Yea. That's how I feel. Should I feel different?"

There's a gust of glitter and the paper lanterns rattle in the breeze. When she doesn't say anything, the light in his eyes shift.

"Does that rash on your neck feel any better?" He asks her. The color of her skin deepens.

Ino truly doesn't believe in fate or any type of luck, but she feels some secret force trying to end her with awful coincidences.

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Shikamaru hates crowds of people. He can't think straight and his trained eye doesn't allow him to enjoy frivolity. People have a tendency to wear their souls like jewelry or tell on themselves within seconds of starting a vapid conversation. The noise is grating on two hours of sleep and a blood bubbling headache.

He usually doesn't bother with the seasonal festivals, but summer was his father's favorite. It didn't seem right to deprive his mother of such a trivial joy. Time hasn't been good to either of them.

As his mother sifts through a table of beaded jewelry, he recollects the many times his father expressed his unending love for her.

 _Does love stop at death?_ Another question that he squanders his wits on. There's no answer.

_'Life is a mystery, Shikamaru.'_

_'It doesn't have to be.'_

"When was the last time you bought me something nice?" Yoshino drawls. When Shikamaru doesn't readily reply, she cuts him a sideways gander, and slaps him with her fan.

"Damn it. I don't know, Ma. A long ass time." He scratches the back of his neck. She looks at him pensively, curling her upper lip. Yoshino wrinkles her nose whenever she sizes him up. His cracked lips give away his hangover.

She's had little to say since Shikaku's death so he waits for the sting of her words. Accepting her harshness would re-establish a sense of normalcy. When she opens her mouth, his heart lurches. He hopes every word is heavy with her usual venom. He hopes she's so vicious it cures his hangover.

"How 's Temari?"

And that isn't what he had prepared himself for. Shikamaru reveals his annoyance with the drop of his shoulders. He knows he shouldn't be surprised _. When you integrate someone into your life and suddenly they disappear, it's natural for anyone to be curious_. Shikamaru's memories seem so distant but when he's reminded of her, he recalls the last time he had kissed her. It feels like a residual haunting. Five even knocks on his skull. Then he gets a dull heart-ache.

"She's fine." The second time he's had to say so and it hurts his throat.

"Shikamaru..." Yoshino stands under his nose and jabs a finger in his chest. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything." He raises his hands in surrender.

"I bet that's the problem! You don't do enough. You didn't stop her? Did you?"

He didn't, but not in the way that she accuses him.

"Life is so short, Shikamaru." These days she says his name with little belief. Where a waterfall ends, his mother became the river that gives life to the land. "You can't just give up on people. Even when they tell you to. Because you never really know..."

The weather is warm but the air between them is stifled with grief. Life keeps moving. It beats around in blaring color.

"I want grandchildren." It's not the first time she's said so.

"I know."

"I'm scared you're too stubborn and lazy to make any." She turns to a table of handmade tacky knickknacks.

"If you say so." He rolls his eyes so hard it gives him a mini migraine.

"I don't know what she saw in you anyway."

He follows his mother's idle stroll down the creative displays of food and what the pretentious deemed 'art'. It all looks like a bunch of nicely painted junk to him.

"To tell ya the truth, I don't know either."

Life has a funny way of shifting people in the right direction. Someone moves too quickly and bumps his shoulder, which leads his attention cutting through a parting in the sea of bodies. He hasn't asked for a sign, but Sai bending to touch Ino's face is shining symbolism of his bad decisions. It hurts because he doesn't make mistakes often.

Shikamaru subdues a knee-jerk reaction. The alcohol still pinches at his common sense.

"I'm thirsty," Yoshino whines.

"I'll get you something," he says distantly.

Sai leaves to search for Ino's mother and she can finally breathe. Metaphorical bricks topple from her shoulders. She feels light for a moment then closes her eyes. The delicious smell of spices does little to comfort her awful sense of humor. Ino realizes how alone she is despite being surrounded by so many familiar faces.

"Ino." Shikamaru's breath tickles the side of her face. She has to catch herself from fainting with fear, lust, and anxiety.

"You look like hell." In a matter of seconds, she rebuilds her defenses.

"So when were you going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?" She bites.

"Are you seeing Sai?" His inflection is that of a smothered shout. Both of their eyes darken with doubt. Ino's soul escapes her first and she has the nerve to take her time with an answer. Licking her lips and crossing her arms, she steps closer to him. Her eyes shifting from his lazy scowl and the curious glares at their obvious disagreement.

"No. I'm not. It's not like that anymore." Ino's guilt is small, but she can't bring herself to look at him directly.

Shikamaru feels his bones stiffen at the sense of wrongness. He feels betrayed by his own body.

"I don't believe you." He's speaking to his heart as well. All of his mistakes he can count on one had.

"You don't have to believe me, but you're not going to act like I tricked you into fucking me." She crudely whispers.

Disbelief is ugly on him. The tip of his nose burns red. She wonders what he looks like when he discovers love– if it's twice the hotness as his lips on her breasts. With the way disappointment breaks his cool, she comes to terms with never knowing. It's not something she needs to know.

This could be her chance to free herself from the noose he has hung around her neck.

"What do you want from me?" She gives him a weak laugh.

"Nothing." Shikamaru retorts sharply. It cuts through her but she's not exactly sure why.

Ino opens and closes her mouth because it's not a satisfying answer, but Sai appears with her mother who shrieks Shikamaru's name as if she hadn't seen him twenty-four hours ago.

Shikamaru's eyes are glassy yet resilient. His frown vanishes as quickly as he had shown his distaste. Ino retains her vexation and looks away.

With the same odd charm that wiggled her out of her panties, Shikamaru swallows her mother up in a mindless conversation. She knows him well enough to gather that it's on purpose.

Ino strangles away her swears, snatching at Sai's hand and tugging him away. He makes a noise but its drowned out by the thunder of her profane thoughts. There aren't enough awful words in her vocabulary to curse Shikamaru nor bottles of wine to help her forget that she'd been a puddle beneath him. She shoves through the crowd until she is sure that she can't feel Shikamaru's presence.

"Are you ok?" Sai stops abruptly and jerks her arm. It damn near starts the flood of tears she's been holding back since he'd arrived this morning. Ino hesitates, dropping her hold on his hand. A minute passes before she faces him. It's a good thing Sai can only touch the surface. As she beholds his openness, she sees her reflection–the guise of a criminal.

And Ino resists the truth the only way she knows how, avoiding it until she can't handle the punishment of her internal isolation. Can she really take a secret to the grave? How many secrets did they bury with her father? She could use all of that missing wisdom.

She hastily curls her arms under Sai's and breaks him into a kiss. It's the most affection she has shown him since this morning– since the last time they had sex. Two months ago.

To her silent horror, it doesn't feel like anything at all. Even when he recovers from the shock and reciprocates.

All of the happiness that rolls around–streamers, candy, and fake gold evades them.

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Shikamaru wonders why his bouts with love are always bitter. He hangs out of his old bedroom window and burns through his last five cigarettes. One after another until his throat feels dry.

 _"Here's the sad thing about death, Shikamaru. You think about all that time you spent ignoring or talking over the problems. Every day, a moment you've long forgotten wakes you up from your sleep or deprives you of feeling good about anything else."_ Yoshino had said to him before vanishing into the dark hallway.

All that time he wasted combating Shikaku holds a candle to his blissful ignorance. Being comfortable is just as dangerous as doing nothing at all.

 _'Don't be complacent.'_ Shikaku presses him from the afterlife, but for the first time, as the stars blink back at him, the memory isn't so cold.

As he ashes his last cigarette, watching the orange sparks float in the wind, he thinks about every small thing he's done to upset everyone close to him. Daydreaming in the middle of Temari's dilemmas, ghosting his mother when she stabs him with criticism, not being as open as he could be with Choji, and avoiding the truth when his father teased him. Behind every _'I'm kidding'_ there is a little honesty.

Shikamaru drops his cigarette butt into an empty flower pot. _His mother's failed attempt at adding beauty into their empty world._

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Ino has never been in love before.

The shafts of moonlight reveal the apprehensive rolls of her stomach as Sai floats above her. As he thumbs the corner of her wet eyes, she unravels her legs from his waist. All of her limbs pooling under and around him like a tipped glass of water.

"Sai, what does love mean to you?" She asks him absently. He takes a moment that feels like an eternity, but the clock on her wall tells a five-minute story.

"It's completeness." He finally answers.

"Do I complete you?" She builds a trap so that she can escape.

"I think you do. Do I complete you?"

"A month is a long time." Ino says desperately.

She ignores her years of discipline when it comes to being elusive. There is doubt in her statement because she fears that maybe she still has it wrong. A month is a long time but so is forever. Sai pulls his fingers from the tangle of her hair and rolls on his back. The bed shakes and it's the ocean between them.

If she were truly a deplorable person, she would take his hand and trace over all the missed marks. She doesn't turn to look at his face in the darkness, but she knows his expression has remained dazed. There is a slight part of his lips as he breathes and he's arched a brow.

When does an inclination become just as dire as oxygen?

When does desire stop feeling like a dream? Does it ever?

Ino doesn't ask him to leave. There's enough room in her bed to muddle over their muddy waters. Sai continues to stare into the void of her ceiling and Ino rolls into her unclean sheets.

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 _Nigella._ Her mind raises a war with her heart.  Between the electricity of her conscience and the war drum pounding of her heart, there is an answer. She doesn't find it in her sleep. When she wakes up, Sai is gone and the higher power doesn't leave a sign within the early morning shadows on her wall.

All that Ino is left with is her gumption. She swings her legs from under the sheets and presses her toes onto the cold wooden floor.

 _'What do you want?'_ Ino silently asks herself. She sprawls her fingers through the wrinkled sheets, smoothing out the lines.

The truth can set a soul free.

Ino finally stands, shrugging off an ounce of her ego. Shikamaru has been on her mind too much for comfort. Ignoring him was like depriving herself of water.

 _'It's ok to be reckless once in a while.'_ She remembers.

When she is sure that there is no trace of Sai, she sets off without combing her hair, almost tumbling down the brick stairs of her apartment.

Instant gratification is her ultimate hubris, but good has come out of her demanding anxiety. If she failed, she would suck it up and move on to the next mistake.

Shikamaru is no one to be scared of.

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Ino has never believed in good luck. Life has always been a series of predictable consequences and how she's dealt with them. It soon hits her as she sprints through the breakfast rush that not only does she not know where she's going, but she's starving.

She looks like a mad woman as she slows into a stop and takes in all of the food she's been missing out on.

Today is the day to be reckless. She could sacrifice one day.

 

 _When had she started denying herself happiness?_ There are a good handful of factors. Ino watches familiar faces dip in and out of shops. Most of them are smiling. Some of them stuff their faces gleefully.

Ino exhales and moves on from her quick bereavement. She opens her eyes to witness the beauty of _chance_. Betwixt two unparallel bodies, she spots Shikamaru– they both spot each other as if neither really had control of time. He stops chewing on his roll and she sees his hesitation ten feet away. Shikamaru takes his finger, shoves the rest of the bread into his mouth and turns on his heels.

 As he starts a pace, Ino charges after him.

"Shikamaru!" The sweetness is forced but her desperation doesn't fall on deaf ears. It pierces through him so he stops. A chunk of bread hangs in his throat.

Ino says his name again and reaches out for his arm.

"What?" He swallows hard until the bread drags down.

"We need to talk!"

"There's nothing to talk about." Shikamaru continues to walk but Ino doesn't peel away from him.

"You're going to have to talk to me eventually so why not now?"

"You've got ten minutes."

Ino steps in front of him and jabs her knuckles into his chest. Reminiscent of their childhood, she glares up at him. Her lips are wrinkled with internal dissatisfaction. Shikamaru screws up when he matches her glower. In her line of fire, he doesn't feel the need to weasel his way out of the mess they have created.

He rubs his chest because her soft punch hurt his soul.

"What is it, Ino?" He licks away the crumbs at the edge of his mouth.

Ino stands straight, shaking the unkempt tumble of her hair bangs. She knew she needed his attention but she hadn't planned the big _'what next'_.

Shikamaru is no one to be scared of.

"Do you ever recall the taste of something from your childhood? It's really good but you can't remember what exactly you had eaten?"

"No. I remember everything...that makes no sense." But he's charmed by her slipped attempt at being deep.

"Well I don't remember everything... I just remember feelings." Her shoulders drop in defeat. She second guesses herself and brings her eyes to her toes. The polish is chipped.

Shikamaru knows what she wants to say, but he wants to see if she can achieve it on her own. He had tossed a coin. Heads, she would continue to ignore him. Tails, she'd be unable to deny their chemistry and allow it to drive her insane.

The coin never landed on a side. It had rolled into the dark depths of a storm drain.

"I can't stop thinking about you and I don't know what that means."

"You know what it means, Ino..."

The way he ridicules her inspires petty contemplation to reject the idea of falling into perfect sync.

"What does it mean? Since you know every damn thing."

"What about Sai?" He counters her.

"What about him?"

She wipes away the dried sleep from her eyes, her face molded into a frown.

There's a lot that could be said but he prefers mystery when it comes to emotions.

"Then what do you suggest, Ino?"

She wants to yell at him for shifting the burden, but today is a 'not so Ino' day.

"We try it out!" It shoots out of her like a million flying stars.

"Try what out?" Shikamaru remains monotonous. His lips curl into a smile.

"You being less of an asshole to me."

He settles with that answer. It feels right enough.


	3. Blue Hydrangea

"What are you thinking about?"

In all of their years of knowing each other, Shikamaru had never noticed the way Ino glowers off into space. It's a look filled with contempt, and he swears if she stares out the window for another hour, she'll melt the glass.

"None of your business." Her brows knit and she shoves the red popsicle further into her mouth.

The fan buzzes through their silence. Shikamaru's throat tightens at her terseness. She gives him a sideways glance. The stained red corners of her mouth dip downwards as she pulls the popsicle back. It runs down the length of her arm and drips along her sweaty thigh.

"Why do you care?" Her tone softens but her gaze isn't any less intense.

"Why do you have an attitude?" Shikamaru rolls onto his side, wiping the sweat from his upper lip.

"Because my armpits are sticky!" She whines but it thunders out of her like a kitten's growl.

Ino tosses her hair over her shoulders with the gust of the rickety fan. Noon burns into the bedroom, reigniting the argument from last night. Her skin is still flushed from his fingers and his breath still smells like her undertaking.

Shikamaru can never properly articulate how her efforts to slight him are bothersome. It either doesn't work or she digs so deep, that it stuns him speechless. He lets her win each and every time because it's easier than her crying. He'd argue that war is easier than dealing with Ino's dejection.

"Why don't we just go to your place?" She licks the stick clean with a bright red tongue.

"Because...." Shikamaru uses his elbow to flatten a pillow. "Then we would have to get dressed."

At that, she flicks her tongue around her lips in a somewhat titillating manner. Her eyes are still sopped with discontent. Ino wrinkles her nose at him and his smile touches the corners of his eyes.

She wiggles in the stool, hunching her back and dipping her face into the fan's weak blasts of air.

"Whaatt iiifff I'mmm tiiired oooofff seeeeinnng yoooou naakkeedd?" The blades slice her words into a metallic hum.

Shikamaru arches a brow and drops his attention between her legs.

"I can think of thirty reasons why that can never ever happen."

"Don't be so sure of yourself, Shikamaru." She straightens her back and folds her legs.

They don't keep up with the time that passes. An armful of minutes is wasted before she truly smiles and it's quite the achievement. There are only so many jokes he can tell before she either explodes into laughter or shuns him into a silence.

Today, he succeeds with little effort.

Today, Ino chooses to be infatuated with him.

With enough looks of longing, when the heat stops being a burden on her skin, she decides that burning in his arms is worth the discomfort. Ino drags her tongue along the sweaty curve of his collarbone and Shikamaru submits.

But unbeknownst to her, as she straddles him into an airless seduction–he is the one who wins whenever she reciprocates the smallest of affections.

Today is rare in that he hits the jackpot. Usually it's much harder.

"This isn't very romantic." She kisses away the line of sweat on his top lip.

"In theory, there's nothing romantic about fucking."

Ino allows days to pass between them speaking. Sometimes it feels like a game, but he's keen enough to know that she's unsure about him for a reason he has yet to figure out. Part of him doesn't want to know why. The wait is always worth it when she finally cuts herself open for him to enter. The feeling is so different he thinks it could be an illness. It's one thing to want someone like air, but it's another thing to desire that they sink you to the bottom of whatever pit they reside in.

Shikamaru has waited for days, squirming mindlessly in meetings. He has missed important details– but in his truth, no detail is more important than Ino smiling against his thighs.

"So that's what we are doing–just fucking?" Ino lifts her head, red staining her chin. Her mouth tastes like frozen cherries. Shikamaru's smile shortens because he doesn't know what to say. They've been hot and cold for three weeks all at her doing.

"What do you think we are doing, Ino?" Maybe he's too soon in claiming a victory.

If Shikamaru had it his way, there wouldn't need to be answers for anything. Doubt wouldn't have room to thrive.

But Ino has always liked it the hard way.

Ino doesn't say anything. She continues to busy her mind with the taste of his sweat and their sleep. Shikamaru doesn't ask again because once she vanishes, she's gone, and whatever is growing in his chest has yet to fully surface.

The feeling is so different and the first night seemed like a prophecy for the many more to come.

It's too soon to diagnose himself.

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Ino had already mapped her life out at the age of twelve. Death hadn't been on the list of things to combat and she had intended to be married by now. There is nothing more terrifying than plans going awry. She loses sleep over it. Her mother does so as well. In each other's company, without an audience, they are zombies, coexisting with a malignant melancholy. Depression feels too dramatic but it's a suppressive feeling. Shikamaru has served as a distraction from it.

 _'People aren't meant to be cures.'_ Her father whispers from the undiscovered depths of the universe.

"No. They aren't," Ino says to her reflection with a mouthful of toothpaste.

Shikamaru wasn't in any of her plans but he had arrived a stinging pain in her throat. He isn't Sai. Not nearly as perfect. Not in looks nor the way he rolls words from his tongue, but Shikamaru has a wholeness about himself. He's a complete body of work filled to max capacity.

Yet it still feels like betrayal to herself and she gags the toothpaste into the sink. The back of her throat still tingles from the tip of his dick–a nagging ghost from three days ago.

Shikamaru isn't the one. She knew it. She's known it since she was a small girl. He isn't what she's been looking for.

Betrayal shouldn't feel good though. It feels too good to stop.

It's nice to feel seen.

'Fucking' is too grim of a word. It's more than that.

Ino cups water in her palm and gargles the remaining minty residue as she thinks of what to really call their circumstance.

_Conscious Lust. Incredibly aware bouts of lust._

But that's not quite right either. It feels dishonest.

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"Has it gotten easier, Shikamaru?" Ino sits on the toilet.

"What do you mean?" He knows what she means but he's learned how to ebb her into vulnerability. Shikamaru feigns ignorance and shoves his big toe in the tub faucet, sinking further into soapy water that's gone cold.

"Death." She stretches her panties at her ankles.

"Nope." And he's not sure if he's prepared for the conversation despite his longing to have it.

"It creeps up on me at the strangest times."

"Like you peeing?"

 Ino doesn't laugh at him. She's been sitting on the toilet for five minutes.

"Sometimes I think I'm ok–it can feel like a habit at times. Like scratching behind my ear..."

"Yea."

"But then other times it hits me and I feel bad for ever feeling like I'm ok."

He's ashamed for finding her sadness so appealing, but it's the second time in his life he's ever seen her not on edge. Shikamaru sits up from the bath water and leans over the edge. Ino can't bring herself to look back at him. The thing about difficult people is that they require unjust amounts of patience and sacrificing. Ino's sadness fills the bathroom to the ceiling and there isn't enough space for Shikamaru's tired thoughts. He rests his chin on his wet knuckles, sorting through his wisdom but he falls short.

"Do you think it's going to be like that for the rest of my life?" She keeps her focus on the tile floor.

"I think so."

"You think so? Shikamaru, you're supposed to know everything." The disappointment is real.

"I can tell you about the human condition but I don't have the answers to life." Shikamaru's jaws tighten.

Just as he thought that she was opening up, Ino stands and tugs her panties up her legs. What's worse– it's better to let her walk away. Her face twists itself into annoyance. It's hard to not feel like it's his fault, especially when he knows it's all of her doing, but difficult people demand sacrifice.

Shikamaru rolls his eyes, holds his breath for a ridiculous amount of time before he rises from the tub to follow her. He doesn't let the water out. He doesn't reach for a towel. Shikamaru steps from the fluorescent light and peers into the shadows of his bedroom. Ino has wrapped herself in his sheets and her foot dangles off the side of the bed.

He says her name–she mumbles incoherently.

"Life isn't going to get any easier from here." He shivers as water drips down his spine.

Ino peeks her head from the covers, her bangs falling around her face.

"And you didn't flush the toilet."

"I'm sorry." She whispers but it's an apology for everything else. He walks towards the bed, her eyes following him, widening into glistening pools of hopelessness.

"Are you crying?" He immediately regrets calling her out but Ino surprises him tonight. She nods her head, exploding into a fury of tears.

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When words become cumbersome, they end up in a perfect knot. The loose ends consisting of untouched feelings. Ino's heart swims in doubt and Shikamaru has already reached the light at the end of the tunnel. As she dreams against his back, squishing her cheeks against him, he thinks about all the instances in his life that led him here. He thinks further into his future and winces at the thought of her not being there even if their little 'thing' falls apart.

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Shikamaru leans back against the counter as Ino sweeps up the day's dust. The drop of her ponytail has been snagged in the knot of her apron all evening, but he hasn't had the heart to say anything. Ino has been in a daze for the past two weeks– unattainable even when she's squirming beneath his kisses. If she wanted to tell him what was wrong, she would've said so, but she's been stingy with her soul for a while even though he's been adamant about standing his ground and going to war with all of her internal conflictions.

"You know what I learned a long time ago that still sticks with me?" He starts.

Ino stops sweeping to glare at him, tilting her head. She chews on her top lip and her lashes flutter with curiosity. Surrounded by the explosion of petals, she becomes the apparition of a moody oil painting. Dusk drains the windows of color– holding their reflection and the many twisting flowers.

"Once a goose chooses its mate, it's for a lifetime." Shikamaru scratches the tip of his nose.

"I think I've heard that before." Ino busies herself again with sweeping.

"I wonder what their method is."

"What do you mean?"

"How do they figure it out?"

Ino releases a light laugh, shaking her head as she drags the broom towards the door.

"Do you think it's as simple as choosing who has the shiniest feathers?" Shikamaru coughs.

"Who knows? Humans sure as hell can't figure it out and if you of all people can't find the answer then maybe we are doomed." Ino locks the shop's front door.

"Do you believe in soulmates, Ino?"

She hesitates, her fingers tightening around the broomstick. Shikamaru's eyes intensify. She feels them burning right through her. If she were simple, she'd melt.

"Not really but I could be wrong. I'm not a goose. Do you?"

"I would like to believe in them." Shikamaru doesn't take his eyes off of her–he doesn't miss how she freezes in time. His hands remember how she feels when she goes still like a lost doe. She catches her breath and his heart throbs. He's sure that his palpitations have pierced the veil of the universe. The mood, the air between them dips into a pit so thick– they both smother.

"Did you think Temari was your soulmate?" Ino derails. She sets the broom in a corner and begins to untie her apron.

"I did." He knows the answer isn't going to satisfy her but he's not in the business of lying.

Ino suppresses a cruel cackle. Doesn't do a damn thing to hide her smugness. Messy in all of her endeavors, she burns him with a glower that stirs sparks beneath his skin.

"What if she is the one, Shikamaru?" Ino strides toward him and tosses her apron over the counter.

The thickness doesn't fold. They are both choking on the ghostly tides of their longing. There is no word yet to properly place them.

Shikamaru doesn't yield to her fighting words.

"What if you're making a huge mistake? Nothing good comes out of seesawing between women."

"Why are you so insecure?" He shoots back. The vibrations ripple through him like a building on fire.

Ino gives Shikamaru the reaction he wants by lifting a hand to strike him, but he catches her wrist and arrests her into a powerless embrace. He knows better as her equal–she's allowing him to spear her. If she really wanted to hurt him, she would've gone through with a purposeful attack.

"Do you really want to hear the details, Ino? To answer the nagging voices in your head, yes I did love her and yes you're not my first in anything." That being said, he had decided the fourth time he buried himself inside of Ino that he was content with her being his last.

Her anger spreads, starting at the tip of her ears and blooming at the apples of her cheeks.

"But where am I now?"

He wants to ask her if she knows what it's like to feel as if her existence had been made for another person– if she believes in the possibility of being forged from the stars to complete the end of someone's beginning...

Ino doesn't break their nearing stare.

"I don't know. You tell me, Shikamaru." She bites, pressing her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

"I'm here with you." And Temari hasn't crossed his mind up until this moment.

"For how long?" Ino's heart drops into her stomach. _For how long can she continue to make herself sick?_ Shikamaru's eyes dizzy her.

"I don't know." He really doesn't. Neither of them do. "For however long you'll have me."

She looks behind to stare at the forgotten vase of tulips. A customer had forgotten to pick them up or thought better against their proclamation of love.

"That's a huge burden to put on me. I'm only human." And definitely not a goose.

"I don't think it is. What are we, Ino?"

"You are you and I am me." She squeezes her eyes shut, inhaling the menthol wisp of words.

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Ino doesn't believe in destiny, but the way Shikamaru stares at her when she gets dressed makes her question her system of beliefs– or lack of.  He reads her like a book printed in tiny font, over a thousand pages. Absorbing every detail. Mentally noting the tiny clues that give away her next move.

She sometimes battles accepting he's like that with everyone.

"You have nice legs." He chews on his thumb nail.

"I know." She poses, sliding her skirt up her thigh and revealing the lace of her panties.

"Your nice legs are gonna make us late."

"Choji can wait." She doesn't want to admit that she feels bad for not extending the branch of friendship.

"If you hurry up, you won't have to be there so long."

"I don't want to go. Period."

"It's not like he's a stranger. This isn't a first impression."

"I feel like you are both conspiring against me."

Shikamaru gets up from her bed, walks toward her with an arched brow and crinkled lips. He buries his hands in his pockets as he lowers his chin.

"For what reason would we conspire against you?"

Ino doesn't have an answer that would satisfy him. If she were completely honest, she would admit to all of her principles flipping against her existence. The butterflies won't stop. She's sure her heart is close to combusting.

"Not everyone is out to get you. No one really cares that much." Shikamaru huffs.

She wants to believe him. It's sound advice but she likes her defenses. They keep her feelings intact.

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They share an umbrella on the way to meet Choji. Ino wonders how juvenile they must look so close together. She widens the space by a few hairs so that the warm rain slides down her bare shoulders.

_Who was the last person she had shared an umbrella with?_

_When was her last real conversation with her mother?_

Ino stares ahead and cringes whenever her toes are assaulted by a puddle. All she thinks is how there's a reason she's avoided Choji for so long, why she hasn't stopped by Yoshino's for dinner, and why she's unable to skin herself for Shikamaru. She sneaks a glance at him– his mouth is slightly curved with contentment. Her eyes travel the sharpness of his nose, beholding the thickness of his lashes. They are longer than hers. Shikamaru has never been cute, Ino grimaces at the tiny stubble at his chin, but she can't quite place the electric attraction. When their skin touches, her vanity crawls away.

It's like slipping into an ugly dress but it clings to all of the right places. Despite the many prettier ones, _this one_ , ugly in color, fits the best.

She doesn't realize how far she's stepped from Shikamaru until he wraps an arm around her waist. Her cheek collides against his shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

She wants to say– _You're leading me down an unwanted path._

But Ino flounders, becoming lost in the terrifying depths of his stare. She shrinks because Shikamaru's soul consists of an amazing assemblage that she can never obtain. They stop walking. He waits and his eyes widen.

Ino opens her mouth, twisting her tongue. Fear bubbles up in her throat. She's either undeserving of him or being punished.

_What's the point in planning for the future if it's already a constellation in the sky._

She decides to protest against the feelings that poison her gut and drags his arm from her waist. Ino tells herself that there is no such thing as soulmates. Love is practical. Love, if desperate enough, can be quantified.

And she is desperate to escape whatever pleasurable hell he's dragged her into.

"You know how I feel about PDA." Ino mutters and looks away from the hurt that breaks his calm.

"It's been a month and some weeks." There's a different kind of desperation in his voice that she chooses to ignore.

"There's people around."

"And?"

The rain shifts from a mist to fat droplets pounding against the umbrella.

" ** _Annnnnd_** – I don't like it!" Because it feels too real.

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They arrive at odds–off balance with each other. After Shikamaru, Ino slides into the booth, twisting her pale fingers through her damp ponytail, not once looking up to greet Choji properly. Shikamaru speaks first but Choji doesn't miss the strain tugging at his friend's smile.

"No excuses, right?"

"You already know–every time you feel compelled to apologize you gotta drown it with a shot."

Ino notices how easily they fall in sync. _Has it always been that way?_ She can't remember.

"For making me wait, you should pick up the bill." Choji scoffs and Shikamaru winces with fake pain.

"I don't know about all that, Choji."

Ino shifts further away from Shikamaru, picking at her split ends. Her cheeks burn a bright red and her conscience validates why she shouldn't have come. She doesn't belong. They only have history in common. Maybe if she sits still enough she will become a ghost, absorbed by the clinks of dishes and the pulse of conversation.

"How long you plan on not speaking, Ino?" Choji leans over the table, tenting his chubby fingers.

Ino narrows her eyes at him before shifting her attention to Shikamaru, who looks equally unforgiving. He holds her glare for a wordless moment then bites the inside of his jaw, turning his attention back to Choji.

She wants to scream at him for being a completely different person. She wants to flip the table for the soft betrayal.

"You didn't speak either." Ino sits upright, folding her hands in her lap.

"Communication works both ways, guys." Shikamaru flips through the menu as if he hasn't been here many times.

"I've missed you too, Ino darling." Choji's smugness saws through her cool, but Ino keeps from shaking.

The waitress appears in an air of magic. Ino doesn't order anything. Her appetite isn't tangible.

"Shikamaru, what did you have to sacrifice to get her to come?"

There's something like static between Choji and Shikamaru. The way they respond to each other, finishing sentences, smirking about things she's either missed out on or deliberately ignored for years.

Shikamaru releases a light laugh but Ino cuts him off.

"Don't talk about me as if I'm not sitting right here." She whispers loud enough for both of them to hear.

"You haven't said anything for the past fifteen minutes. You might as well not be here." Choji sinks into the cushioned seat, folding his arms over his large chest, looking all too amused for her liking.

"It's starting to look like my sanity is the price I've paid and four naps. I'm definitely going to need four naps after this." Shikamaru whistles. Ino props an elbow on the table and fully turns to face him.

" ** _Your_** sanity?" Her words sit between her teeth. They share a look that exposes secrets. Shikamaru clenches his jaws at her bitterness. She repeats herself with deadly emphasis.

"Don't be so dramatic, Ino." Shikamaru turns away from her again.

"I'm just curious about this loss of your sanity. You said it." She whips her head around, pretending to be interested in their surroundings.

"You promised to leave your hurt feelings at home." It spills from him and it's too scattered to gather back up and swallow.

"I feel like there's a lot of context that I'm missing. Is this a lover's quarrel?" Choji clears his throat.

"Negative." Ino clicks her tongue. Shikamaru's face says otherwise. He puts on a pensive stare at nothing that's too familiar for Choji to miss. It's not exactly a pout– Shikamaru's too even-tempered for that. There's so much space between them that it looks on purpose.

"You sure do sound like a married couple." Choji scratches at the surface. The corners of his lips tug into a smirk.

"Never in a zillion years." Ino huffs.

The little cool Shikamaru has been clinging to vanishes. Choji stops watching his friend and scans the floor for their waitress.

"That's how you really feel, Ino?" Shikamaru sizzles.

"That's exactly how I feel. Never. Ever." She doesn't look at him.

The food arrives but Shikamaru loses his appetite. Ino sits defiantly still. Like a wildflower sprouting from the cracks of cement. Their first night haunts him and he suddenly feels too small for his uniform.

"That's funny, Ino. That's funny and you're full of shit." He stabs his chopsticks in his food.

"You can think that." She stares at Choji.

"I know that for a fact because it's not the same tune you were singing to last night. Or the night before that."

Her skin burns but she's too stubborn to break Choji's wide-eyed stare. If she looks at Shikamaru, she knows she will combust.

"You're spot on, Choji my guy. We've been sleeping with each other for a month. How else do you think I convinced her to come here?"

Satisfaction lightens Choji's face and it's not from the food.

"Shikamaru." She breathes. A cross between anger and distress. Sadness is somewhere in the middle.

"Damn. So that's where you been all this time? Ino, you've been holding him hostage?" Choji fails at taming the fire. His voice is the wind that rolls the flame into a wildness. Ino slams her hands on the table and the restaurant deadens.

She stands, searching for something inside of herself to hurt him, but there was nothing. He had managed to steal the desire to be brutal in one sweeping blow at her trust. Ino resolves to say nothing at all. She takes his umbrella and leaves, not looking back–unable to meet the attention of anyone on her way out.

Shikamaru's food sits in his mouth. He can't bring himself to swallow.

"I don't want any part of what you've gotten yourself into." Choji grimaces at his own words as he acknowledges Shikamaru's visible suffering. Shikamaru washes down the food with a drink and refuses to touch any more of his plate.

"A month?" Choji mutters.

"And some weeks." Shikamaru chimes distantly.

"I mean, that's not a long time– but I can imagine dealing with her feels like a century of headaches."

Shikamaru doesn't respond. It's been the exact opposite, despite their many disagreements.

"I'm shocked you expected more out of her."

"She's not that bad, Choji."

"She's not that bad _right now_ because you're boning her." Choji shovels down a fat chunk of meat.

They sit in an agonizing silence for twenty minutes before Choji pipes up again.

"I'm amazed it hadn't happened sooner."

Shikamaru snorts, attempting to eat his now cold food.

"You knew who she was before you got involved. Better than anyone else. Better than me."

"Isn't it funny how your mood can completely change the taste of food?" Shikamaru's tone is unintentionally clipped. It's a silent request to move on and Choji receives it with all of his charm.

They don't mention Ino again but her presence lingers with the tang of spices. She's still around them in spirit, at least for Shikamaru– so deep in his skin that he could never really wash her away. A month isn't a long time to absorb someone into your life, but it's felt so much longer. The more he drinks, the harder he thinks about her.

Choji doesn't bother to ask what has he magically come to see in her. His friend looks at him with disappointment, as if he's forgotten the years of her sizzling bitchiness. Ino isn't a difficult code to crack if anyone paid close attention. Her anger is nothing but hot air to hide how small she feels. She knows it doesn't take a microscope to see her insecurities, so she becomes unattainable. Every inch of her is a mile he can take to heart. Even if he has to pry it out of her.

Shikamaru takes one last shot before coming to terms with Choji's disapproval. He's ok with the world never understanding why he deals with her. If everyone got the chance to experience the softness of her sadness sliding down their throat, they'd want it for themselves too. Ino's vulnerability is his secret and he takes pride in having an answer that isn't universally known.

"So you're not going to ask me why?" Shikamaru gives Choji one last time to probe him before he seals himself off completely.

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The cloudy sky bleaches the sunrays milky white.

Even with every window open, she cannot cool off. Flowers are supposed to heal but she feels worse surrounded by their carefree colors. To only need sunlight and water to sustain beauty, to be unaware of everything else that makes life terrible–Ino inhales the humid air, sprawled on the cool hardwood floor naked. A fat leaf twists from the flower pot on her windowsill, shaping a shadow against the ceiling, hovering over her face.

Ino closes her eyes, dragging an ice cube down the curve of her nose before sliding it into her mouth.

If only she could adopt the habits of flowers. Pretty until winter. Dying over and over again, but more beautiful each and every time. The ice numbs her mouth as she ruminates over the day.

Who is Shikamaru to her? She searches for a hole in her daydreams and there's not one big enough to fit him.

What is she doing? What void is he filling? Ino rolls the shrinking ice along her tongue. Her teeth begin to ache from the chill.

More importantly, why does he feel so good?

Ino drags her eyes to the window. The glass shakes from the wind and rain.

_'Why are you so vacant?'_

She's been holding on to tears since she made it back. She's been telling herself it's not worth it. If she's been so vacant then why has he stuck around?

Why are her feelings so hurt? Why this? Why that? Where are all the answers? There's some vital information she missed out on as a child– something her mother forgot to instill in her.

Four knocks at the door. She knows it's Shikamaru. It's his own special knock. Ino considers ignoring him for good but he knocks again with a little more passion. Her heart lurches. She sits up, yanking her pale pink robe from the couch. Her footsteps feel like she's treading through water. Fingers curling around the lock, one last time she entertains telling him off.

But she **wants** him just as bad as she wants him to vanish.

Ino opens the door, crunching down on the ice cube. The wind washes through her robe and the loose strands of her hair. Shikamaru looks as though he has survived a very bad shipwreck.

"You took the umbrella." His voice is hoarse. He doesn't make any sudden movements.

"I did and what are you gonna do about it?" Ino tuts.

Shikamaru balances himself with both hands against the doorway. His muscles expanding in his fishnet sleeves as he leans in. Ino doesn't move. Their eyes anchor each other in place. He smells like the earth and sake.

"Nothing." He rasps, licking the rain from his lips. Rain soaks the front of her robe.

"You're soaking wet." She says plainly, swallowing the remaining traces of ice.

"Thanks to you."

"I'm sorry." She wonders if he realizes how hard he's frowning.

"No, you're not." He drops his arms from the doorway.

"I am." She steps out the way for him, but he half turns on his way inside, catching her face in his hand. Her skin is almost as wet as his with sweat. It feels better outside than it does in her apartment. If their tension fails to suffocate them, it would be the doing of the stuffy air.

The door slips closed from her languid shove. He reels her in with an ease only demons possessed. Shikamaru folds her bottom lip with his thumb.

"Sorry for what?" His eyes are too intense so she shuts hers.

"For being vacant."

The answer is more surprising than the apology. Shikamaru swallows. His mouth feels like cotton. Her name sits on his tongue but words cannot suffice. He drops his hand to her neck. With both hands, Ino grabs him by the collar of his vest. They crumble into a series of feathery kisses and Ino's back collides against the door. He lifts her right leg around his waist, slipping his hand from her neck between her legs.

"You're dripping a puddle on my floor." Ino murmurs into his mouth. He teases with one finger before penetrating her with two.

"You're dripping too." His laugh scatters when her walls loosen around his fingers. She digs her nails into his shoulders and he paces her into complete submission.

When he stops she gently bites down on his bottom lip. Her hands falling from his shoulders to the zipper of his pants. Shikamaru slinks his arms out of his vest, devouring the remains of her soul with one last kiss. He sighs when her fingers finally reach his dick. Ino turns around and presses herself against the door. Balancing on the tips of her toes and curving her back. Despite the sweltering heat, the door feels cold against her nipples.

Shikamaru lifts the silk fabric of her robe and angles himself, dragging the head of his dick between her ass cheeks before slipping inside of her. He doesn't ease his way. Ino takes the shape of him in one hard thrust and she strangles a whimper. Taking the air between clenched teeth. Pressing her face against the door, her palms flatten.

He runs a hand up her back, fingers creeping under the heavy folds of her robe. Her skin shimmers with sweat and his tongue feels as if he's consumed a glassful of sand. The dimples in her lower back, how her muscles and flesh respond to the swing of his hips– it's foreboding like fake diamonds. And he's not sure if it's the mixed alcohol or his better judgment.

Ino doesn't make her playful noises this time. The air that she doesn't choke on sounds like painful attempts at not saying his name. As if she knew just how much power he had given her in such a short amount of time. Ino knows where his hard line is and how to divide him in two. It's never been more apparent now.

She bites down on her tongue when he mercilessly buries himself so deep, he reaches her cervix. The noise she does make, with the growl of her nails against the door, isn't satisfying enough and it doesn't compare to an apology.

Ino strategically hides her face behind the twisting tangles of her hair. Sucking strands into her mouth whenever he pushes too hard inside of her. Her toes begin to hurt from supporting the weight of their sex. Her face aches but whenever he pulls out, daring her to not say his name, she swallows the spit she's been holding under her tongue.

He thinks over and over again–' _I could really love you_.'

His face burns when he recalls a moment of her innocence. From his memories, Ino looks at him with sad eyes. Her mouth moves, but he doesn't remember her declaration verbatim. It was the first time she admitted to being lonely.

Shikamaru pulls out of Ino and presses the head of his dick against her slick back. He strokes himself until he orgasms. Semen drips between his fingers and Ino expires at the warmth of it on her skin.

They are still for a moment. Wary of each other. The first move is always the hardest. It shouldn't be, but it is for them. Ino feels the change in his demeanor–like how moonflowers knew to open at night. Shikamaru withdraws from her slightly. Shuddering from the fierceness of his orgasm.

"Ino." _If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one around, does it still make a noise?_

She's distant from him. Her head throbs. Her walls pulsate. Ino turns around, feebly, with her eyes still closed. Her robe falls and wrinkles around her hips as she rests her back against the door. His semen glues the silk to her skin.

He says her name again with more command.

"Shikamaru." Her voice sounds like crumbling bricks.

He knows why she doesn't open her eyes. She's hoping to seep into the walls or evaporate entirely.

Shikamaru steps forward and reaches for her hips, tugging her into dizzying proximity. A soft cry escapes her. She bares her teeth and lifts her hands to his chest, forming tiny fists. His shirt is still damp. Not only does he smell like a pot of soil littered with cigarette ashes– his familiar scent rises from the layers of bad habits, her sweat...

"I can't lie to myself." He doesn't know how she manages to not make herself sick. Shikamaru has never been able to understand unnecessary dishonesty. He's aware that if he stops to look in a mirror he wouldn't recognize himself. Choji's words feel like judgment he didn't think he'd fall under.

 _It's so easy_. He resists the urge to shake her.

"I'm not you." It feels like the final nail in a coffin.

When his hold on her tightens into a real embrace, Ino drowns out the raging screams of her ego. A numbness takes over her. The lethargy after a war.

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Her mother hadn't lied when she told her that intimacy complicated everything. _You can't run as fast as you want_. It's one of the few things she recalls her mother ever being right about. Ino's legs are sticky from sweat and her dwindling arousal. She sits across from Shikamaru, running the brim of a glass against her lips, the ice sloshing back and forth.  He lightly taps his scarred knuckles against the table. She's just now noticing how beaten up his hands look. Ino drags her eyes up his arm, stopping at his neck where she had planted two fresh hickeys.

Everything surfaces at once. _Dead bodies washing up on the shore._

"Do you want this to continue, Shikamaru?" She interrupts the hum of the ceiling fan.

He stops staring off into space, stops pecking his knuckles at the table and sits up.

"What do you think I want?" Shikamaru still doesn't bring himself to look at her. He sinks his face into his palms, balancing his elbows against his knees.

Ino's hold on her glass tightens. The perspiration slips between the gaps of her fingers. She hasn't taken a sip of water. It's just comforting to hold– gives her a sense of security.

"You want me." She starts.

"And how much do I want you?" He hisses as if he's reached his capacity. Ino blanches.

"I don't know." She lies.

He scowls at her between his fingers, jaws flexing.

"I'm not you. I'm not in your head." She tries to summon the punch of her usual snarl, but he had single-handedly obliterated her finesse. Fucked it right out of her until she saw stars falling from the sky. He had effortlessly destroyed her pleasure threshold, smoothed it out into a hair thin line from pain, as if he were digging for something that a map had led him to.

"Ok." Shaking his head, he sits up and stands on his feet. He smells like stale cigarettes when he passes her. As much as she hates the way it stains the tips of his fingers, it's his own scent. When he kisses her, it's just as bad as second hand smoking. She has developed her own oral fixation.

Shikamaru vanishes into her bedroom in a fit of swears. She listens to him fumble around for his clothes.

Ino is stuck in her seat. Her heart screams to be free of its prison, but she's too busy compartmentalizing her mess of feelings.

Sakura had asked her once why she was so cold. A month before they officially stopped talking. When bras and boys began to matter. Ino had simply asked her why her forehead was so big. She would never admit to anyone other than Shikamaru that it sucked losing a friend like that.

Cold is such a harsh word. Her mother is the cold one and the last person she wanted to be compared to. For years she's been telling herself that she isn't cold, crazy, difficult, or rude. She's just unwilling to settle.

Shikamaru reappears from the darkness of her bedroom, zipping his pants. The way his form shifts in his shirt quickens the speed of her heartbeat. His shredded cuticles are a nervous tick he's acquired after the war. At first, it bothered her but she likes the way they feel when they hold hands in private.

Ino says his name quietly but he carries on looking for his vest.

Sakura has forgiven her. It's clear in how casual she becomes when they are in the same room. The war had stolen her ability to feel confident in the future, but it hadn't taken away her pride. Ino hasn't budged since she cut her hair.

Ino gets up to approach Shikamaru as he slides his arms into his vest. She stands under him having no idea how to start redemption. He refuses to look at her. She's glad he doesn't because his anger feels wrong. If he gazed at her directly with such darkness she'd expire.

"I'm never been good at much, Shikamaru..."

"You're right. You have this tendency to destroy things that aren't even in your way." He steps around her. Ino reaches out to stop him, but her fingers slide along his arms.

"Could you just wait and give me a minute to explain myself?" She says softly. Shikamaru stops for a moment, shedding all traces of his emotions. His lips have fallen into a straight line. Worn out indifference pales him.

"Last time you asked me to wait, my life stopped for a month that I can't get back." He says with an evenness that spears her.

"You don't really feel that way." Ino glowers. That pain before she feels a nauseating swell of tears throbs in her throat.

"Not yesterday. Maybe not immediately right now but I will tomorrow."

He only stops for her to prove him wrong. Despite being sincere in his exhaustion with her, he wants to know if they've shared a mutual desperation for each other. He's felt it, but actions have always spoken louder than words.

_'You teach people how to treat you.'_

But Ino fails him for the last time. She stands there and dares him to leave like he won't do it. It's her way of begging but he's tired of being a conventional man for her. If she can't say it out loud with no audience, then it's not worth the trouble.

Shikamaru leaves. He doesn't slam the door either. She prefers that he had. It would've made combating her feelings much easier. She could've gone to bed with false hatred for him.

 _Had he done it purposely so that she wouldn't?_ She suddenly realizes how deep he had planted himself inside of her. To be so precise in her unhealthy language...

The atmosphere goes cold but the air conditioning is still broken.

For the first time, after Sasuke, after Sai, Ino confronts the possibility of soulmates. He's gone but she still smells his cheap cigarettes.

They argued about killing his lungs in style but he is too pragmatic to spend extra money on a prettier box of cigarettes.

 _'They all feel the same.'_ He had said to her.

The conversation sticks out because Shikamaru doesn't feel like the rest.

 _'But they don't all taste the same._ ' She had countered him.

_'They achieve the same goal though.'_

_'Your death. Right?'_

_'Mhmm.'_

 

Ino regains feeling in her legs. Her own weight brings her to her knees. Something worse than loneliness eats away at her ego. It's violent in the undertaking of her soul. She feels it spread like a disease. The only part of her fighting against it is her pounding heart. She can hear it thudding in her ears.

She can't bring herself to hate him. There's not a weapon to forge against him. She's never been in love before but if it feels nearly as horrible as this small mistake, then she's fine with never finding it. For the time being, she will be sure to avoid it.

The pressure she puts on her fingertips breaks a nail and that sends her into an upheaval of sobs.

 


	4. Pink Hydrangea

**_"Us."_ **

**_"Me and you."_ **

Memories were such awful things. Shikamaru thumbs out a cigarette and swears up the last puff of smoke.

**_"I. Us. Me. You. Everyone else in between."_ **

When Ino had admitted to never being in love, he remembered a very specific feeling of excitement. It wasn't like the climax of perfecting a technique. The feeling was very much like a piñata exploding in his chest– a piñata filled with fireworks, comets plummeting the moon.

**_Them._ **

He could've been her first. He thinks, miserably and as reasonably as a talking mule, that he 'is' her first. In spite of how much she fought him– Shikamaru still wants her. It's lessened over the weeks and it's become more like a nagging force. A 'clean your room' or 'sort your laundry' type of nagging. But what he feels now isn't new. As he scowls at the sand-filled cracks in the floor, he understands that this too shall pass. 

He takes a deep breath– his father had once told him that vulnerability is what makes a person genuine, but Shikamaru can't help but feel like the advice is misleading. Vulnerability had done nothing but leave him with a bunch of one night stands. First, it started with searching for Temari in other women. Now, it's expanded into something much darker. This he concludes to be hopelessness. As pathetic as it sounds, he feels it more than the nicotine and lights another cigarette.

"I quit..." Naruto tosses the stack of papers across the table and then buries his beet red face in his sweaty palms.

"That's not how anything works, Naruto." Gaara collects the documents, correcting the spin of the bottle before it ruins his days' worth of hard work.

The white-noise of their back and forth further separates Shikamaru from his tangible body. He sees himself among them. The wall clock _thumps_ instead of tics, the after-scent of their dinner still lingers within the empty bowls. Naruto wheezes a laugh at something that perplexes Gaara. There are also the shadows created by the flower pots, overflowing with exotic plants that only grow in the Land of Wind. _Again_ , Ino spindles her way into his awareness. _Life has gone on_. Shikamaru makes a noise in the back of his throat. When he breathes, his muscles expand in his shirt.

" _Blah blah blah_..." Naruto waves a hand of dismissal in Gaara's face. "Can we talk about the things that make us happy instead of all this boring shinobi shit?"

Shikamaru coughs, considering that Naruto had imposed himself on his business trip.

"Shinobi shit...? Really?" Shikamaru ashes his cigarette into one of the bowls.

"I said it! Shinobi shit!" Naruto slams his hand on the table.

"Shinobi shit..." Gaara hums into his glass of water.

There's a collective sigh of yearning and all of them feel guilty for being so idle in their lives. Each of them have dealt differently with the slipperiness of their time in this world. With the cigarette between his lips, Shikamaru attempts to sort through the intricacies of the piling paperwork, but Naruto beats a fist into his chest and wails.

"I've also got some good news!" He slurps on air.

Gaara is genuinely interested. Shikamaru wants to shed his old skin for new.

"I FINALLY proposed to Hinata!"

"Please tell me she said no..." Shikamaru exhales.

The energy in the room shifts with Naruto's mood. As if he's sucked all of the shimmering enthusiasm from the stars through the windows, and his shoulders slump. His whole body slouches as he suppresses the varying harmonies of his laughter.

"Really? You two haven't been together that long?" Gaara sinks back into his seat and mirrors Naruto's giddiness.

"When two people love each other...what's the point in waiting!?" Naruto melts into a puddle, an interesting mix of inebriation and slobbery bitter-sweetness. The way he slurs his truth zips through Shikamaru like lightning.

"Can't argue with that, right?" Gaara really looks at Shikamaru for the first time this entire evening.

"Well aren't you a very reasonable dude." Shikamaru says to Naruto but doesn't avert his gaze from Gaara's. The table between them is the weight of their history, their brotherhood. Naruto is too drunk to feel the awkwardness that settles. He simply plucks the bottle of sake by its neck and downs it like water.

"You ever just look at someone–look at the sky and feel this incredible epiphany? Like everything makes sense and is going to be ok?" Naruto chokes on a gulp.

"I think it's funny. You ignored her for the vast majority of your life." Shikamaru finally looks away from Gaara. He looks at Naruto's watery eyes. It amazes him for a moment how Naruto is capable of abandoning his pride. He's always been so quick at opening himself and he never seems to mind when people pick a little piece of him for themselves.

"Yea. Yea. I don't deserve her." Naruto resolves quickly.

"I think you deserve her more than anyone." Gaara reaches to slap his friend on the back.

"I don't though. It's really shitty realizing that the cure to your existential crisis has been staring you in the face the entire time. God, _if there really is one_ , has literally dangled this girl in front of me for so many years. I don't think a wedding is enough. There aren't even enough apologies. I feel guilty for being so stupid." Naruto huffs and all the glitter he has stolen from the midnight sky disperses back into the universe. He hides his face in his folded arms and mumbles, rather piously _'I'm such a dumbass.'_

Inwardly, Shikamaru echoes the sentiment, unaware that his face has wrinkled into a gut punched frown. He flicks the ash from his cigarette a little too hard and loses his grip. The cigarette tumbles into the bowl and the food residue sizzles.

"That was almost you, Shikamaru." Gaara's voice clips the silence.

"What do ya mean?" Shikamaru knows damn well what he means, but he feigns ignorance in all of his decisions, resting his elbow on the table and chewing his thumbnail.

"I was really looking forward to us being in-laws."

"You miss me or something, Gaara?"

Naruto groans incoherently until his breathing settles to drunk snores.

"I miss you as much as Temari does." Gaara shrugs.

"I'm gonna wager that's not a whole lot." And if the opposite were true, Shikamaru doesn't want to be privy to it. He wouldn't be able to stomach the guilt. Then, he would have to confront the bottomless pit of women he had entertained himself with.

"She misses you enough, but she's too stubborn to be depressed about it."

"I'm glad." Shikamaru says with more aggression than he means.

"How have you been?" Gaara's expression is of neutral blankness, but Shikamaru can't help but recollect the many times he had witnessed the side-effect of his pillaging for the sake of Temari. Sometimes, it was like watching the rain snuff out a fire and he'd feel less guilty, but there were times where he had watched them lose parts of their happiness. He's only ever cared once but only because he had made her cry. It feels as if Gaara stares at him with the same disappointment. Like he can see all of the lives Shikamaru had interrupted to purge himself of his sister.

"Underwhelmed." Shikamaru says with a lot of wind. He concludes that Ino has been his punishment.

"Aren't we all?" Gaara drops his attention back on Naruto and cracks a short smile.

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When it rains, it pours. Buckets and tubs – a tsunami pounds against her window.

Denial is quite the process. After she had picked herself up from the floor, she decided that she didn't need Shikamaru. She never really wanted him in the first place. He had just happened in her life like any normal accident.

For three days she wore a convincing enough smile. A week and another thunderstorm later, that smile has become heavy. She storms into her bathroom, and when she finds the toilet seat down, she becomes disappointed. When she reaches in the cabinet for a cup, her hands always reach for two. As she sits at her table, shoveling dry cereal into her mouth, she gapes at the empty chair. It had only been a month and he had sewn himself so neatly into her daily routine. That chair looks too lonely and she refuses to sit in it.

All of it feels wrong yet her decision had been so clear. What remains of him is his toothbrush– _his ass never really lived here_. But _here_ feels like an awful black hole without him. After three complete weeks and one sad Monday, time stops. Her alarm screams at her but Ino lies face-down in her pillow. She hasn't left her apartment all weekend. There have been knocks on her door but she lacks the ability to care. Who she thought she was and where she was trying to go become a cloudy mess of doubts. It is so strange having to rebuild a routine that doesn't revolve around Shikamaru. Her house is too tidy. The smell of smoke doesn't linger.

For an hour, she fingers herself until her stomach hurts, until she's so dizzy and sweaty she wants to vomit. This is not how you 'not want' someone– not wanting him shouldn't inspire feelings of disharmony.

Another day passes and someone knocks on her door so violently, she leaps from her pillows. With misplaced anger, she staggers into her living room, whipping her robe around her body as if it were a towel, like a proper insane woman.

Ino's fingers are shaky as she removes the chain and turns the lock.

"What the fuck!" She huffs when she yanks it open. The blinds have been down in Shikamaru's absence, subconsciously she's trying to murder her flowers. The sun stings her eyes. Her vision refocuses until she can rightly absorb Sakura's confusion and concern.

"What. The. FUCK!" Ino smothers her scream behind clenched teeth.

"Your mom is worried. You haven't been at the shop and you won't come to the door." Sakura snorts.

"But here I am. At the door."

"What the fuck, Ino?" Sakura swears like a toddler. Unnatural and forced.

They stand in silence for a while glaring at each other. Sakura looks around Ino and notices the slouch of the un-watered plants. In the distance, the alarm clock screeches for relief.

As a woman, Sakura recognizes that Ino is experiencing a crisis, _but she had talked to Sai the other day and he seemed fine_. As an old friend, Sakura is compelled to stand there. Ino hasn't been her favorite person for the past few years but she sees herself in the haziness of Ino's angry distress. Ino Yamanaka cares about appearances above all things. A fine-tuned Ino would never answer the door half naked smelling like sweat.

"When was the last time you brushed your teeth?" Sakura unfolds her arms, hanging her head to the side and Ino bursts into tears.

.

The clicks of the ceiling fan make up for Sakura's quietness. Ino sits across from her in a daze, staring at her chipped fingernail polish. Sakura clears her throat three times, but Ino remains drowsily removed, her face hidden under the messy waves of her hair.

"Why haven't you spoken to your mother?" Sakura pipes up.

"There's nothing to talk about." Ino says immediately with a low-lidded glare.

"Why haven't you talked to Sai?" Sakura has an idea but doesn't know how to be direct about her curiosity. Sai had been honest about their break-up yet he hadn't broadcasted it to the world. Whenever Ino's name is mentioned, he never recoils but his eyes become a smoother black. Half of Sakura is nosey. The other half is concerned. When she had asked him w _hat happened_ , Sai simply shook his head, as if he genuinely had no idea. And Sakura believed what he couldn't seem to say.

_It was like Ino to disregard things that bored her._

"Sai doesn't understand me." Ino's resentment for Sakura grows a little by the minute.

"Well, Ino...you never give anyone a chance to get to know you." Sakura rebuts.

Ino's apartment smells like it's been deprived of sunlight.

"Maybe if you weren't so cold..." Sakura starts again but Ino shakes her head violently.

"I'm **_not_** cold. Damn it, Sakura." Ino massages the bridge of her nose. "Did you come over just to ridicule me?"

"No. Your mother is distressed and I volunteered, because I have the misfortune of caring a lot about things that don't have anything to do with me." Sakura crosses her legs, resting her elbows on the table.

"I'm not cold." Ino repeats herself with less edge.

"You can be. It pushes people away."

"It's not my fault that people don't have spines. I know what I want and people don't like it. They want me to be complacent." Ino's vision waters.

"Or maybe we all just want you to be happy." Sakura stops chewing on her bottom lip.

There's a moment of silence much like a funeral's. Ino gazes at Sakura through a teary-eyed film. Her hold on her robe loosens as she feels the weight of her soul tugging her downwards. Ino slouches in her seat. The last time she had been happy was the day before the dinner with Choji.

"You and Sai should talk about it. Clearly it's upsetting you." Sakura reaches for Ino's hand across the table. "You only get one life, Ino."

Ino gapes at Sakura. She blinks three times before a tear slides down her cheek. A single tear will be the last of her mourning for Shikamaru. _Life **is** too short_.

"Sai loves you–" Sakura sighs and it takes all of Ino not to ask _'how could you possibly know?_ ' The sad truth is Ino doesn't know a damn thing about what it's supposed to feel like either.

"Ok" is all Ino can really say. In many ways, it's a resignation to defeat.

Her father had once boasted to Shikaku, _"My daughter will grow to be the woman that starves oceans."_

And she believed it to be true the majority of her life. Her mother wouldn't allow her to believe otherwise. Yet this moment challenges that prophecy.

"Ok?" Sakura does that weird familiar thing– she lowers her head, pinches her lips together, and bats her eyelashes. Ino unhooks their fingers but doesn't destroy the intimacy of their skin touching. And she thinks– _look_ _how pretty you are, Sakura._

"Ok." Ino un-strangles her voice.

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.

_"Be like water, Shikamaru."_

If he didn't hear it enough from his mother, his father used it as a weapon whenever he caught a temper.

 _"But I'd rather be a mountain."_ Shikamaru would argue for the sake of being the contrarian.

 _"But the rivers are what shaped the mountains."_ Or something like that. Many variations of it.

Shikamaru had always wondered why it mattered. _Why do old people talk in riddles?_ Twenty- odd-something isn't _old_ , but now he can grasp the necessity of metaphors. That sense of urgency he had in his adolescence is gone.

"Gaara can't come..." Naruto hangs over the windowsill, stuffing his face with a chocolate bar.

"Can't come where?" Shikamaru had stopped listening thirty minutes ago.

"To my engagement party." Naruto huffs at the clouds.

Shikamaru hesitates. He glares at the clock on the wall then drops his attention on the scuffed up floor. When he shifts to say _anything_ to Naruto, the grit crunches under his sandal.

"There's always the wedding." Shikamaru sighs.

Naruto takes a deep breath, holds it, then blows away his frustration. The candy wrapper crunches in his fist as he stretches.

"Yea but I want him to be involved in everything."

"Well that's not possible."

"I know it's not but impossible things have never made me less of an optimist."

Shikamaru stops a short grunt. Gaara is running an hour late for their next consulting before they depart.

"Kankuro asked about you."

"No shit?" With little enthusiasm, Shikamaru takes it upon himself to flop into Gaara's designated 'boss man' seat.

"So you're just not gonna say hi?" Naruto beams at him.

"For what?" Shikamaru drums his fingers on the desk.

Like a fish, Naruto opens and closes his mouth before puffing his cheeks. Thirty emotions wrinkle his features. His blue eyes darken then lighten then pale. Shikamaru simply purses his lips.

"What do you mean _for what?_ Temari's family is your family. I don't remember you being such a sour butthole."

"Sour. Butthole." Shikamaru clicks his tongue, bringing his hands to his chest and tenting his fingers. "How very scientific of you."

"I'm being gravely serious." Naruto still clenches the chocolate candy wrapper.

"Well, Naruto. There's this thing called time and it erodes things. Like relationships. You follow?"

"I'm just beside myself. Is falling out of love that drastic? Geeze. Is this what emotional terrorism is?" Naruto runs his stubby fingers through his hair. His eyes widen upon the horrid realization of the _actual factuals_ of life.

"Don't go blaming me for your cold feet." Shikamaru whistles.

"No. See. I'm not like you, Shikamaru."

"Not many people are."

Fifteen more minutes without Gaara, they stop speaking. Naruto, still visibly petrified, leans his back against the wall, sinking somewhat– sinking the ship of his gleefulness. Shikamaru feels bad, fleetingly so. It's not his fault that Naruto inserted his own happiness in his lacking love life.

"Why does everyone assume it's my fault?" Shikamaru allows the thought to surface.

Naruto shrugs and drops completely onto the floor with his legs sprawled. Ten more minutes pass them and the sun sits in the middle of the sky.

"Because, it's usually always our fault, Shikamaru. This love stuff is easy for women."

"I disagree."

"What if I'm an asshole like you and just wake up _out of_ love with Hinata?"

"Why are you projecting your fears on me so hard? We are two completely different people." Shikamaru shifts his weight on the arm of Gaara's chair, narrowing his eyes at Naruto. "Love is great, but not all of us get it right the first time. Some of us have to get it wrong fifty more times."

Naruto's face softens, but his straightened lips don't shave off the mild resentment.

"Let me be happy for you in peace." Shikamaru's tone gives away a brief glimpse of his regrets, but Naruto is too late in receiving the hidden message. As he lifts his head to speak, Gaara steps into his office with a gaze of listlessness and wanderlust. Time had truly gotten away from all of them.

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.

 _Cyclamen_ –  she declares war on her body and she's never felt more human. Ino stands in Sai's doorway, lost for words. If she were any good at being poetic, she'd craft a tome of her mistakes. When she looks at him, she only sees the past of not too long ago.

An hour later, he doesn't look any more forgiving, but she reminds herself that Sai always looks inscrutable. In her memory he's only ever thrived on his beauty, which he is entirely unaware of.

 **Cyclamen are poisonous.** Ino's hurt feelings have always been like a virus. _A woman who starves oceans, poisons the rivers, destroys dynasties with a never-ending drought._

An hour and fifteen minutes more, she remembers how much she worshipped the deep curve of his cupid's bow.

"Why do you deserve me, Sai?" She asks tersely. Her limbs are stiffer than cement. She feels her heart shrinking, but she convinces herself that this is how it should've been all along.

Sai's hair hasn't dried from his shower. He blinks at her, digging his tongue against his jaw as he thinks, his eyes don't leave her– _as a man that discovers woman first and fire second._ They both observe each other as strangers by soul but disgustingly familiar by flesh.

He rises from his seat, approaching her with sedated desire. When he reaches her, he gently takes her by the throat in that intimate old way that used to feel like romance. _Shikamaru had stolen the pulse of her arousal._

Sai bends down to brush his lips against hers and she figures out, in the throes of their confused longing, that he too is recollecting all of what she had destroyed in such a short amount of time. It takes the strength of all the women that made her to not erupt into any more tears.

"Do you believe in soulmates?" His hands leave her neck and settle on her hips.

 _No. Yes. Maybe. I could–_ she muses. "Yes." She lies to him. It's an unspoken, _I can try to believe_.

"That's why." He speaks on his own fairytale, but Ino suspects that maybe she has been the problem the entire time. Being difficult and searching for things she had no real concept of.

"How do you know, Sai?" She slowly unravels. Bit by bit. Every second feels like their ship is sinking.

"I just do. I don't want anyone else."

Ino's silence means she consents to his ideas. Her unwillingness to fight anymore welcomes a full kiss. Like clockwork, for all the distance she had wedged between them, their clothes are at their ankles like they never really broke the habit of 'making love' to each other.

They are so well acquainted, that it lacks excitement. Despite that, it's the first time she's ever felt his sincerity. There isn't a shadow of doubt that Sai loves her. In his own way that is.

He holds her down not only with his strong arms, but with his eyes and they aren't empty. Her wisdom warns her that it's her ego attempting to fix the sadness that has made her sick in Shikamaru's definite absence. But she shoves sensibility into the corner of her thoughts better off unattended.

Three deep, all-consuming thrusts in, she gives herself permission to move on and with Sai's way of having sex with her. Without the hot-bloodedness, the certainty of her orgasm, and too much safety.

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Sai claims to have missed her. He said, rather poetically, that her absence has been just as natural as an erupting volcano. His feelings the lava and his heart the earthquake that started it all. She took it as sign that he was trying and maybe she wouldn't have his looks only to sustain their happiness.

As Sai zips his pants, Ino gazes up at him, rubbing her thumb along her bottom lip.

"We're running late." She re-fastens the buttons on her sundress.

"Time is only a concept, Ino." Instead of rising, he flops back into the mattress. He rubs his face with his hands, blinking away the blurriness of his temperament. Ino pushes herself from her knees, the hem of her dress is bunched in panties. She crawls on top of him and begins to button up his shirt.

"An old concept deeply ingrained in today's society." She smoothes out the wrinkles done by her hands.

"When have you ever been punctual?" He places his hands on her hips and squeezes. "You're anxious."

"I am not." Ino's voice shrinks. Where she had smoothed out the wrinkles, she grips his shirt again, creating new lines.

"You are."

It has been a month since she's last seen Shikamaru.

"I'm not." She says more pointedly. _Shikamaru doesn't like social gatherings_ – she tells herself.

 _Troublesome._ Ino frowns distantly.

"If you say so." Sai carefully rolls her off of him.

And they are terribly late by an hour and twenty minutes. Unbuttoning, unzipping, buttoning, then zipping became quite the obstacle. Ino thinks it's possible to be fucked into a state of amnesia, and for the past week and a few days, it seems to have worked. The thought of Shikamaru only presents itself at the strong possibility that if he isn't at the pre-engagement party, then he will most definitely be at the real event.

Her determination has never been limited though. If she wants to forget, she will by any means necessary. If she didn't learn anything else during her training, she knew how to be resilient.

"We don't have to stay for the entire thing if you don't want to." Sai whispered in her ear, but she feels it's too late as they stand in front of Naruto's door.

"Do you not want to stay?" Ino squeezes his hand. Her pale blue sundress sucks the air out of her when she moves too quick.

"If it means little to you, it means little to me." Is all he says, a subtle declaration of his worship, and he brings her hand to his lips and kisses each of her tainted fingers. Ritualistically, neither of them had washed their hands.

And Ino thinks that this is what she originally had anticipated for the rest of her life. Dirty hands like dirty secrets. Beautiful children. Sai's unending approval.

She can't remember why she stopped wanting it. She's determined to never remember.

The day the gap in her desires grew too big, she allowed a storm to sweep her into a month's worth of nights she can't take back. And it's jarring not regretting any of it either.

When the door opens she takes a deep breath.

.

Asuma occurs to him as he simmers over not being able to smoke inside of Naruto's apartment. As he snaps open a soda can, from his memories, Asuma scolds him for being too young to speed up his eventual death.

_"But you smoke all the time."_

_"Listen to your elders."_

_"But you're not elderly."_

That was such a small bubble of happiness.

Shikamaru takes a long sip to wash down his growing agitation. Naruto buzzes in his ear about _something_ and Lee aggressively disagrees with him. It doesn't resort to an actual altercation because Kiba is too good of a sport to allow drunken rivalry to ruin Hinata's day.

And he realizes, being the fly on the wall, he hasn't really had a conversation with anyone since he's been here. It's normal for him to be taciturn but the normal feels disturbing. He figures that maybe he shouldn't have come.

Shikamaru catches the chill after someone walks over his metaphorical grave.

"What do you think, Shikamaru?" Sakura appears beside him.

"I think nothing but good things." He suppresses a belch.

She hums in response, tapping her chin with a finger. Their attention falls on a flustered Hinata assisting Kiba with a hilariously tipsy Naruto.

"It's not even noon." Shikamaru mutters before taking a long swig of his flat cola.

"He insisted. I quote, _'I can't deal with all those stuffy rich folks while sober,'_ and you know Hinata..." Sakura leans in to gently whisper and they both make a noise of agreement. Hinata hasn't the heart to deprive Naruto of what he wants. She's accidentally a people pleaser.

"I guess this is what happiness looks like." Sakura said after a pause in their small talk.

"Like I'd always imagined." Shikamaru derides, but Sakura doesn't miss his acrid sarcasm. She is stunned for a moment. Their eyes meet and he winks at her.

"How's Temari?"

He had never noticed how round Sakura's face is. With her hair pulled back, her cheeks remind him of cotton candy. A minute passes before he realizes he's visibly caught off guard by her question.

"She's great."

"That's good to hear." Sakura smiles at him warmly.

The room's attention shifts when there's a knock at the front door. Naruto manages to escape from Hinata to welcome ' ** _his_** _guests'_ – he stammered to say four times before reaching the door knob with the grace of an elated monkey.

"How is Sasuke?" Shikamaru looks down at Sakura. She scratches behind her ear, blinking four times before gazing back at him.

"I think he's fine."

"Love is a strange thing, right?" He nudges her with an elbow.

"Splendid and strange." Her smile fades but only for a moment. In the mix of Naruto's silliness and everyone else's enjoyment, they both see Sai before Ino. Sakura's demeanor shifts without strain.

The perfect assessment of his environment is a finished puzzle missing one piece. Possibly lost forever or hidden on purpose to avoid a devastating absolution. One long throated swig, he finishes his drink and crushes the can– it's as reactionary as he will allow himself.

The polarity of their souls won't allow them to shut off that tiny part of their brain that gets them high off of dopamine. Before Ino sees Shikamaru at her peripheral, the turnings wheels of her chakra feel him like a very strange occurrence of deja vu.

Shikamaru's mind isn't as weak to her as his body. His face holds an elusive candidness that only Ino can read when she mistakenly catches his glare– _a lesser bug caught in a spider's web_. There's an effortlessness to his glower. His features don't wrinkle nor darken at the sight of her but there's no trace of forgiveness. And she knows exactly, in the instance that he scratches the side of his neck with his pinky, that they are still stuck in their last contemptible hour together.

Ino doesn't crush herself under his glare. She turns away before anyone notices the cracks in their boundaries.

"So you took my advice?" Sakura slips beside her, snaking their arms together.

Ino hesitates but her train of thought stays on the rails. She rubs the corner of her eye, her long pink nail grazes her water line.

"Advice?" She doesn't mean for it to sound condescending. Sakura winces and Ino quickly changes her tune. " _Yeah yeah yeah_. A rare occurrence. Right?"

Sakura's mouth widens to speak but Naruto tackles them both in a headlock.

For an hour they endure their hyper awareness of each other. Between two cups of alcohol, Ino tries her hardest to avoid the direction she feels him in. Sai whispers something to her, squeezes her shoulders and vanishes. She gives Hinata a rather empty praise but the bride-to-be receives it as if it had been the nicest thing she had heard all morning.

And the idle conversation isn't enough. She manages to stay alert, nodding on cue whenever Sakura says "Do you see what I mean?" or "Isn't that crazy?" and "Doesn't Hinata look so happy?"

It takes thirty angels on the shoulder to keep her from rolling her eyes.

There's a collective silence– that awkward moment when everyone stops talking at the same time unintentionally. She feels like there is a small chance that she has created the sudden stiffness in her head, because she feels it like a ton of bricks crushing her body.

Lee says _something_ that wakes everyone from the lull of conversations, save for Ino who stares into her empty cup until Sai touches her. She comes to the epiphany that _this_ is very real and not some abstract dream.

"Oh my god, please shut your dumb mouth..." Naruto hiccups but Lee flings an arm around his shoulder.

"Some people spend their entire life on a journey..." Lee's face burns scarlet. "Some of us will not reach that pique point of happiness or find that person we are meant to be with forever. Naruto, when I see you and Hinata, I see a completed version of happiness. That kind of happiness that all the adults seemed obsessed with as a kid."

"Geeze. Don't get so sappy. It's making my stomach hurt. Hinata make him stop." Naruto's eyes shimmer like puddles. Extending a wobbly arm at his fiancé, he fails at an attempt to escape and Lee anchors him in space.

"I am not being sappy! I am being incredibly insightful! This hurts my soul!" Years of unscathed sentiments and unbroken dreams regarding love, Lee beats them out of his chest until he reaches a misty-eyed blindness.

As pitiful of a sight that it is, there's not a hint of collective embarrassment. Ino sucks in her cheeks, looks to Sai to see if he too is suppressing a laugh, but he's silently expressive. For a sullen minute, she feels inherently broken for wanting to spit up in her cup.

From Sakura, to Shino, to Kiba– Ino is the odd man out. Curiosity murders her when she looks to Shikamaru. Their eyes meet, their attention sticks. They see each other completely without interruption.

"The quest for love leaves most of us dry, empty, wastelands of pessimism– but you Naruto have conquered!" Lee balls a fist.

Shikamaru quirks a brow and Ino knows it means more than one thing. She clears her throat and continues to smother her judgment.

He's honest with himself about the climate of their situation. There is amusement to be had in having something so intimate in common with Sai. And to witness Sai's moon-eyed obliviousness to Ino's shallow breathing. Immediately, Shikamaru wants to feel bad but he reasons that he's only human and should be allowed to feel envy. There's nothing criminal in feeling jilted.

Lee's speech turns into a mess of incoherent dribbling. He begins to sob so hard, it starts to sound like he's coughing up his lungs.

"How I wish to be smitten in the throes of passion!" Lee chokes and Shikamaru takes it upon himself to save the moment. If he stood by any longer, projecting bitterness where it ought to not be, he'd put himself in a shit mood for the rest of the week. In one sweeping motion, he takes a half empty class off the coffee table and slaps an arm around Lee. Naruto breaks a little under his added weight.

"To add on that– I had a sudden memory that I think perfectly relates to you guys, Naruto..." And Shikmaru lifts his chin at Hinata. "Me and Ino had this conversation not too long ago– about whether or not soulmates are real."

Ino bites on the rim of her cup. Sai looks down at her curiously. He doesn't miss the color rising on her skin.

"And, as you all know, I pride myself on being a reasonable person. My initial belief was **' _No'_.** There could be no such thing as soulmates. In theory, on paper, it sounds nice but in practice it's really dumb or naive to think that there's one person made specifically for you. Thinking about it– that at the moment you were conceived or born– the universe has put together your spiritual equal." Shikamaru pauses, realizing that there is no end to the mental path he is taking. The cup makes his fingers sticky.

"Lee you said when we were kids, that all of the grown-ups were obsessed with love and I can't help but think about my parents. It just seemed like a lot of compromise at the time but now I understand having experienced a long-term relationship. When I think about Kurenai and my mom and their unwillingness to move on, I see the bigger picture and I think we all do right now."

If there was ever a time where Ino hated him, this moment eclipses that one. And it's not a senseless hate– it's a wordless rundown of her insecurities. Every vulnerable moment she had given him replays itself in blaring color with heightened senses. He sees right through her shifting emotions and it's evident that he cares enough that he's willing to bruise her feelings in a room filled with unsuspecting witnesses.

It takes everything in her not to say to him– _'Pettiness is a weakness.'_ **But**...

Ino might be difficult, crass, sometimes unfeeling, _but_ she's never been an idiot. Shikamaru only resorts to emotional warfare because it's her preferred language of fluency. She squeezes the plastic cup and it crackles.

Unbeknownst to them, half of it, Ino willingly chooses to be ignorant to, Sai gathers an awareness and becomes the bystander caught in their cross fire.

"Geese mate for a lifetime. How they figure it out? None of us really know, or maybe the answer is out there and I'm too jaded to dig deeper. There's only so much knowledge you can acquire before you start preferring wisdom. If geese can penetrate the mysteries of the soul or _whatever_ then maybe there's hope for all of us." Shikamaru lifts the cup and inspects the insides. He doesn't recall who the drink belongs to, so he shrugs.

" _Hinata_ , I think it's great that you've found your goose." He finishes with that, encouraging everyone to salute with their cups before gulping the questionable contents of his down. Lee erupts into violent tears and drags Shikamaru and Naruto down to their knees. Naruto spills his drink on his freshly pressed pants.

"That's a sentiment I can get behind." Sai says to Ino as he plucks her cup from her hands and finishes it for her.

"I guess." She mutters too distantly for his liking.

"You're not okay." He sighs after an unsettling pause.

"Are any of us ever _okay_ , Sai?" Ino stops glaring at Shikamaru and turns to him. Her voice causes him to flush a little.

"Are you jealous? Do you want me to propose to you?" He blinks, mildly joking. She has to remind herself that his dryness is just _who he is_ and _who she isn't_. It hurts for only a bit. Her eyes fill up with what he can only see as her typical moodiness.

 _'You're like a Rubik's cube'_ sits on his tongue but she shakes her head and walks away before he can express the confusion of his fondness for her.

And he thinks, as she walks toward Sakura– _how many times has he actually apologized without receiving a smidgen of forgiveness._

.

Shikamaru has never been a liar to himself nor anyone. Never has he been compelled to conceal the truth either. He realizes that coming had been a gross underestimation of his grievances. He knew Ino was invited. He didn't have to come, but he doesn't believe in running from tiny battles. What use is he as a shinobi if he can't face what might as well had been a bad breakup? He laughs at himself. Not even his separation from Temari put him this far out of spirits.

But he wasn't going to deny that all at once, like the sudden pang of a headache, he had begun to miss the slow peel of her lips when she speaks, the shape they form around glass cups and his fingers.

As he scrubs away the suds on his hands, Shikamaru holds his eyes on Naruto's bristly toothbrush leaning against Hinata's. The sink is a romantic clutter of things that belong to Hinata and he grimaces at how desperately he had tried to occupy the empty spaces in Ino's life. The water runs between his fingers, barely suppressing the sounds of everyone else's contentment on the other side of the door. He wonders how long he can sit in here before anyone realizes he's missing.

The knob turns. He doesn't jump when the door creaks open. Some deeper part of him knows it's Ino before he sees her peering at him in the mirror. He turns off the faucet and she shuts the door behind her with a hushed click.

"How would you explain it if someone saw you?" There was a point where he knew everything he would say to her if they were even within close proximity again. _That_ everything leaves him like a good dream he can't quite hold on to.

"It's no one else's business." She says adamantly. He turns around and leans against the sink. Beyond them, Naruto's laughter sounds like its trapped in a glass jar. Ino's eyes roam his face, re-exploring everything she missed, hoping that nothing has changed. Her aggravation with him shortens to steady breathing.

"I think its Sai's business." He had read in a book a long time ago about karmic connections. If past lives are real, then he and Ino have done this a hundred lifetimes.

"Pettiness is a cheap tactic and you know that."

"You came in here to hurt my feelings..." His Adam's apple rolls. He keeps his mouth open to say more but he can only breathe.

"You started it." She fumbles with her hands because she can't put together a perfect necklace of words. "You started everything."

"Then what does that make you? A masochist?" He can't seem to reconcile with how much he wants her against his common sense. She doesn't argue with him because she can't. Arguing with him would do nothing but choke the air out of them. Ino doesn't know how to stop and Shikamaru never wants her to when she's within arm's reach.

"What?" He sighs. This time, he doesn't expect what he wants to hear.

Like always, she never has anything to say. Ino's arms hang at her sides but it's not quite a sign of surrender.

"You know– I thought losing dad would be the end of my disappointment, but..." Shikamaru is unable to look at her. "You never cease to amaze me."

"Shikamaru, you're someone that I care about." _Why does it feel like she's breathing fire?_

"I guess I am." He moves for the silver knob but Ino steps between his arms.

Her breath hitches when her back collides against the door. She begs with his name. _For what?_ She's doesn't want to figure out the details so she acts purely on gumption. Her dress tightens on her skin and she creates a phantom asphyxiation.

Shikamaru betrays himself for a fleeting three minutes. For three painful minutes he allows her to start a kiss at his chin. She stretches her body until her lips reach the corner of his mouth. When she tucks her hands under his shirt, he brings them back down into the happiness of other's surrounding them–more specifically Hinata's things littering Naruto's bathroom.

"This looks bad." Shikamaru moves briskly for the door knob and this time, manages to escape.

The universe is kind to them. No one notices their blight on the celebration.

Lee has caused a ruckus loud enough to disturb the dead.

Shikamaru decides to leave, only giving a short good-bye to Sakura. His apology is drowned out by the shrieking of Lee's tears muffled in Hinata's lap. And it's better this way because he gets a windless feeling as if he's been punched in the stomach.

When he reaches the cool air of outside, he digs into a pocket for his pack of cigarettes but it's empty.

He figures this is as kind as karma gets.

.

.

The engagement party was what everyone had anticipated for it to be. The Hyuga's did nothing half assed, but Ino had been too caught up in her head to fully appreciate the food. Her stomach is full but she can't remember the taste of anything specific. If she wasn't staring off into space, until her vision blurred with white crystals and glitter, then Sai was stuffing her face with samples he didn't have a palate for.

 _"You look like a depressed frog."_ Sai had said to her. It's the only thing she recalls clearly from the entire event aside from Shikamaru not being there– which was the best and worst thing about the evening.

She comes out of her state of numbness when she realizes that she is still wearing her heels. Sai lifts her foot in his lap and gives her a very expressive look of amazement. Ino stares back, shifting her weight on a pillow, waiting for him to tell her just how sad she looks.

"You didn't enjoy yourself at all." He unhooks the strap at her ankles with slow affection.

"No. I did not, **_but_** all that matters is that Naruto is happy."

"Do you really think they are soulmates?" Sai rubs his thumb against her big toe.

"Who knows?" Ino's stare is blank. She sees Sai but can't quite recognize him nor his bedroom. It's like staring at a brick wall, trying to find the pattern in the cement that holds the bricks together, but some bricks are shorter than others and that ruins the neat formation. She can only start over and over again with aimless hope.

Sai presses his thumb against the protruding bones when she curls her toes. His blood reddens the skin under his fingernail.

"Are geese really monogamous?" He asks after a long empty silence.

"If Shikamaru says so, then it's true. He knows everything. He always has." Ino's breath stops in her throat.

"No one knows everything."

"Shikamaru definitely knows everything." She gives away a lot of sadness. Sai catches all of it and his face blanches. From the tips of her toes, past her ankles, traveling up to her knees– her bones and tendons stiffen. He hopes that it's just in his head, but he's trained and touched enough dead bodies to know what withdrawal feels like. When she drags her foot from his hand, it feels like she's taking away his right to love her.

"You two had a disagreement." The statement beats down his rational wall of thinking. Sai becomes completely human. Ino's eyes widen.

"Why do you say that?"

He hesitates because she doesn't ask 'who'.

.

.

.

.

Shikamaru takes a deep breath. He holds the air in his chest, closes his eyes until his body tells him that he can't disappear this way. Self-imploding bitterness is just part of the process and he's endured much worse.

When he opens his eyes, Choji is staring back at him equally somber.

"Well, we have been _here_ before." Choji slides his menu away.

Shikamaru doesn't readily respond to the statement. He watches Choji's fingers press against the table. Today their favorite spot isn't crammed with people. The mood is incidentally more intimate than Shikamaru had wanted.

"C'mon it can't be that bad." Choji starts and Shikamaru cringes.

"Unfortunately..." _It is that bad_. Should he reach heaven, he will be sure to ask god why hurt feelings feel like bleeding out on a battlefield. Shikamaru closes his mouth and sucks in his jaws.

"We haven't seen each other in a while." Choji takes a sip from his glass of water– he's turning a new leaf. No more excessive drinking for sport. Shikamaru snorts because he's given it three days to last. If he's a bad friend, maybe only a couple of hours.

"Yea yea. I know. Last time you saw me I was in a bad mood."

"There are tons of prettier and nicer girls than Ino."

The problem is that none of them are Ino. He doesn't want another version of her nor the polar opposite. At this point in time, the idea of anyone else, he can only imagine as an insult to his senses.

"Look at you not wasting any time. Went right for the jugular." Shikamaru slouches in his seat.

"I'm just saying, Shikamaru..."

It always takes twenty minutes to pass before the waitress slides them their food. Never a minute too early or too late. If Choji isn't truly adamant about being sober, then three more plates will replace the one he's about to shove his face into and the night will carry on like always.

They'd both leave drunk with hot faced intentions to see each other the next day.

But it never happens because Shikamaru takes missions mindlessly. It stopped being a challenge to push himself. His absence has become a necessity to boredom or a means to see just how long he can cheat death. He's just waiting on the right mistake. Something that can properly jilt him.

Everything about Konoha has become tediously familiar. He feels like the blood pumping epicenter of it all because he doubts anyone else can see just how ingrained their lifestyle is. Nothing changes unless someone dies.

 _"Fucking adulthood."_ Ino chimes from the wasteland of his conscience.

"I'm about to disappoint you." Shikamaru drops his chopsticks and gently raps a fist against the table. Choji struggles to swallow a mouthful. Reaching for his glass, he glares at Shikamaru attentively.

For the first time in his life, he regrets not being destructive. He knows that if he loved Ino any less, he would've stayed in Naruto's bathroom with her for much longer.

 _That perfect mistake_ – he's been grasping for it but he can't seem to shut off that rational part of himself. He wants to emulate all of her turbulent ways of feeling and soundlessness.

"I don't want anyone else." And it's a very absolute feeling.

Choji sits up straight. Shikamaru never says things that he doesn't mean. For Choji, the declaration is terrifying.

"It's supposed to feel that way." Because he sure as hell doesn't want anyone else besides Karui.

"I've never felt this way."

Temari was a tower in the process of toppling.  Ino has stolen something he can't readily take back without a war within himself. It's not time. No one can hold time. It's a corporeal impulse that won't allow him to exist harmoniously without her.

Choji only decides to believe him when he can't decipher his friend's frown. It's not an expression he's familiar with. Shikamaru had stopped looking at him directly. He has been peering through him, the walls, everything stopped existing. His attention is nowhere.

The noise rises or perhaps, Choji wonders, Shikamaru's sadness has penetrated the atmosphere. The universe hurries to correct the bad energy that seeps from him. His face darkens, but he picks back up his chopsticks and proceeds to eat. Dragging his eyes from the distance of nothingness to the sweating glasses of water. 

"Sorry I haven't been much of a friend." Shikamaru mumbles.

Choji can't exactly process how witnessing his friend's heartbreak has affected him. It's great to be assured that Shikamaru Nara has never been too stubborn to feel real things, but it also leaves him with a sense of hopelessness. If Shikamaru can be this broken, how exactly is he going to _feel_ the day Karui decides he isn't worth a grain of sand? If she ever does...

"Damn it, Shikamaru..." Choji shovels down huge cuts of beef.

.

Time softens people. Or rather happiness does. When Sai touches Naruto or Sakura, he can feel a difference in them. Even though Sakura is silent about her discontentment with the state of Sasuke, she still manages to be vulnerable. It's in her eyes when she's caught staring off into the sky.

Sai understands that only he can recognize emotions as tangible things. He likens them to building blocks. And he's aware that he is the result of a broken foundation. His blocks were destroyed before he could develop a sense of self.

Sometimes, being sorely different feels like isolation. Ino tells him that isolation and sadness are two different things, but he's pretty sure that they are comparable. For that, he doesn't fault Ino for huffing when it takes him too long to answer a 'trick' question.

He and Sakura fall behind Naruto when they enter the restaurant.

"Geeze I'm starving!" Naruto announces to no one with his hands on his hips.

"When people are hungry they stop at restaurants, Naruto." Sai hiccups.

The statement falls on deaf ears. Naruto begins to step around tables for a waitress.

"Are you really all that hungry?" Sakura pinches Sai's sleeve.

"No, but I wanted to do something nice for you two."

"Naruto is never gonna turn down food."

"Which is why I suggested it. He never turns down anything free." Sai tries a smile that's surprisingly easy to handle.

"Holy shit!" Naruto screams from a booth. Sakura grimaces but Sai doesn't flinch. He flags them down, creating a wild spectacle of gestures. "It's a party of five! Look who I found!"

Naruto wiggles himself next to Shikamaru and nudges him with an elbow. "You're an asshole you know that? I might have been plastered but I was gonna find out that you were a no show at the Hyugas. Haven't seen ya since! Can you believe this jerk, Choji?"

Shikamaru manages a terse smirk, rolling his eyes so hard he gives himself a migraine.

"Don't feel bad, Naruto. He rarely hangs out with me either." Choji looks defeated after finishing his plate.

"ShikaCho without Ino!" Sakura squishes herself next to Naruto. Shikamaru scoffs as Naruto scoots closer, but when Sai sits next to Choji he completely deflates. Their eyes meet for a moment. Yet instantly, Shikamaru commands his attention back down to his unfinished plate.

"Yeah. I haven't seen all three of you together in eons." Naruto looks between Sakura and Choji.

"Naruto. I don't think you understand the definition of _eons_." Sai crosses his arms. A feeling he can't quite place rises from his chest.

"When was the last time you guys talked to her?" Naruto flaps a hand at Sai. "Wait...how is, Ino?"

"Don't ask us. Ask, Sai." Shikamaru digs his chopsticks into his noodles.

"How is Ino, Sai?" Naruto's face brightens.

Choji glances at Shikamaru who keeps his eyes lowered. In this moment, Choji realizes he's one of the few people who can differentiate between Shikamaru's indifference and sulkiness. He clenches his teeth together and cringes.

"Ino is just Ino." Sai seems to say to everyone but his attention hangs on Shikamaru.

"God these waitresses move like molasses!" Naruto rubs his stomach.

"Shikamaru?" Sai rests his elbows on the table. When Shikamaru swallows, he loses all traces of his surliness. He licks the corner of his lips and stifles a burp.

"Hmm?" Shikamaru's brows furrow.

"How long have you been having sex with Ino?" Sai's tone is unfeeling, but Shikamaru receives the question like an underhanded blow. His initial reaction is hidden when he fakes a cough.

Sakura retches a gasp, sits upright in her seat and looks directly at Sai.

"What?" Naruto's smile hardens with disbelief.

They all fall silent, save for the growing business of the establishment. Shikamaru clears his throat and continues to eat.

"What exactly has she told you, Sai?" Shikamaru knows the answering is _nothing_.

"She hasn't told me anything. You know her just as much as I do. She's not the most forthcoming person." Sai becomes acquainted with a slight sense of irritation.

"No. She's not." Shikamaru slowly chews his food. Choji kicks him under the table.

"I was hoping that you'd be different."

"I haven't had sex with her in two months." Shikamaru isn't sure if he should be put off by Sai's matter-of-factness or feel a greater version of guilt.

Sai presses his lips in a straight line. He knows that torture isn't always fruitful when it comes to obtaining information, but some wicked part of him wants to know everything.

"Do you still want Ino?" Sai asks him after another long pause.

"As much as she wants me." Shikamaru stops eating. "Which isn't a whole lot if she's with you. Right?"

"Are you in love with Ino?"

If Shikamaru could saw off a limb for Sai's silence, if that was what it took to satisfy his morbid curiosity, then he'd gladly give both of his legs. But that's clearly not what Sai wants. What Sai wants isn't clear to begin with.

Shikaku didn't raise a liar.

"I am." Shikamaru shouldn't have hesitated when the answer is so simple. He loses his appetite, his usual demeanor– he surrenders to Sai his undivided attention.

"What does that feel like to you, Shikamaru?" Sai leans against the table. His expression turns from blank to glowering desperation. He searches Shikamaru's face for something he can bring back to Ino and perfect.

Sakura releases a joyless sigh, opens her mouth to interject...

"It feels like hell." It's a violent inclination that he can't nurse away.

"What does that mean?" Sai digs his nails into the table.

"I think you know what I mean." Shikamaru's voice shakes. "If you _really_ know her as much as I do then you already know."

They only see each other.

A heaviness crawls into Shikamaru's gut, anchoring him so that he doesn't dissolve into an unthinking idiot. He feels his frustration rising to his temples.

"I see." Sai hasn't broken character from the moment he sat down. The huffy waitress arrives and as if nothing borderline tumultuous had sprung between them, he turns to smile at her and politely asks for a menu.

All eyes are on Shikamaru, but he can't seem to tear his line of focus away from Sai. He curls and uncurls his fingers until he can't seem to focus on anything but escaping the wall and Naruto's shoulders.

.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I said this would be the last chapter but I guess the muse just isn't done with this yet. So I'm gonna push for one more chapter and conclude this soap opera lol. Who knows?? The next chapter might not be the last either. This story has been completely writing itself. If you want to follow my updates or send me prompts while you wait on the next chapter, my tumblr is my pen name: bawgdan. I love getting prompts for drabbles.


	5. Green Hydrangea

She's in one of those weird moods, where she feels everything but it's not enough to sink her into sadness, nor anger. Ino sits on her windowsill, stretching, folding her legs out onto a chair. The electrical wires cut through the skyline– they've always reminded her of veins. In a way, that's what they are.

 _Most_ would argue that they made the village aesthetically unappealing but she's always liked them dangling above her head.

Security. That's exactly what she is feeling.

And relief.

Staring down at the winding pathway that leads to her apartment, Ino balances the sliced orange between her teeth. Her eyes jump to the clock on the kitchen stove. Three hours have gone by and Sai is unusually late.

She inhales, bites down, sucks a little harder on the orange.

This is unlike Sai. Ino gets a phantom feeling of wrongness but she's _too fine_ to dwell on it. Perhaps he has gotten sucked into a conversation and has busied himself with absorbing every detail. Sai remembers everything because he's discovered that people like it when you show that you've listened to them.

Sai remembers important dates like they are extensions of himself that he had personally folded and put away for later.

The further down this rabbit hole of Sai's quirks, the stranger it is that another thirty minutes goes by.

Ino starts to chew on her fourth sliced orange when she peers out her window again. This time she finds Sai stepping around two old ladies carrying bags of fruit. His walk is quicker than his normal pace. Something is visibly on his mind. From two stories up, she can see concern spreading across his face. It darkens when he gets closer to the steps.

Sai's version of concern is a hard look ahead of himself, doesn't look anywhere else– aware of his surroundings but doesn't take them in with precision. He's explained that frustration makes everything blurry but the thing he's frustrated at.

 _"Tunnel vision, Sai. It's called tunnel vision."_ Ino had told him.

She watches Sai sprint up the steps, prompting her to jump from the windowsill. In the swiftness of her motion, she slams her ankle against the edge of the chair but doesn't feel the pain until she's standing four feet away from her front door.

The lock clicks. She plucks the orange her mouth. The knob turns. Ino's toes pop when she curls them against the floor.

Sai opens the door and a warm blast of summer air enters with him. He looks at her as if he's surprised that she's here...in her own apartment. Like he's missed something fundamental. It's not the same dissatisfied look she noticed from the window, but it's not the way he usually looks at her.

He grimaces, painfully as if he's trying to focus on her.

"Ino," he says.

Completely thrown off by his stiffness, she winds up her shoulders. His name is stuck in her throat. Her brows and lips wrinkle.

Sai shuts and locks the door behind him, then proceeds to walk right past her. His attention tumbling from what she imagines is her blurry presence to what's in front of him. Which is exactly nothing in particular or nothing as important as her.

He smells like outside.

"What took you so long?" Naturally, she follows him into the bathroom. She notices the hairs on the back of his neck are curled– and this observation leads her to the realization that he has been sweating. Profusely.

Sai doesn't respond. Unzipping his pants, he stands in front of the toilet, tilting his head back and his shoulders slump as he relieves himself.

Ino leans into the doorway. Her temper rising. That _fineness_ evaporates.

"Sai." Her tone is punctuated with impatience. Sai slightly turns his head. His bangs cling to his forehead.

Slowly, he parts his lips. Thinking for a moment as his face smoothens out to his familiar blankness.

"Shikamaru is in love with you." He wants to ask her if she knew this already, but finds it to be a futile question. People don't fall 'in' love without a specific course of action. Love doesn't happen without some form of instigation. There's no possible way that Ino could be oblivious– _but_ she's been a bottomless bowl of surprises lately.

Ino gapes at him. They don't say anything for a suffocating while. She stares at him until he reaches down to flush the toilet.

"That's stupid. Where did you hear that?" She says with disbelief, but it's so slight he gets the sense that it's not disbelief in the statement itself.

"From his own mouth. What better source?"

Ino immediately reveals the truth in Sai's notions of instigation. He's the wrong person to lie to. He's spent too much of his time observing which parts of her body turn red first in the face of adversity. Ino's entire body loosens and he believes that if he weren't there, she'd collapse into a puddle of her unspoken feelings. She changes color.

"That's stupid!" Ino sputters. When she swallows, her jaws twitch.

"Why would he lie? Someone whose _always right_ I'd imagine wouldn't have the inclination to lie."

Ino throws up her hands and storms away from the doorway. She huffs a hardened ' **No'**. Sai's throat constricts around words strangely tinted with trepidation. Nothing has ever bothered him so–this troubleshim beyond his natural sense of reasoning. It feels like assault. His slumbering, unfound passion begins to eat away his coolness. He's a step behind her, his pants still unzipped.

"He hates me. That's why he told you that. Because he hates me and wants me to be miserable!" Ino absently digs through the pile of clean clothes on her bed, mixing them with her dirty laundry. Simply so she can hold on to something soft.

"Then what did you do to him?" Sai stands beside her, eyes darting from the tossed clothes to her frantic hands. Ino doesn't say anything. She continues to dig through and sort her bras. Sai says her name twice before grabbing her arm.

Ino's gaze trails up her toned arm, following his very visible veins. She can't look at him directly so she stares at the center of his forehead.

"I haven't done anything." She whispers.

"Nobody hates as a pastime. Hatred is provoked, Ino." Sai's voice is desperate. If anyone in the world has the right to be confused by very simple feelings, it should be him.

Ino stops rolling a pair of her panties around her wrists.  There's really nothing she can say or should say. Sai isn't a liar. Ino lies to herself often but not to other people– she just withholds the full truth. Sai's hold on her tightens. Ino confronts him with her eyes. She feels the beginning of tears in the back of her throat. A sharp pain tingles her nostrils. A fire spreads through her nasal cavity.

"What do you want me to say?" She strangles. Her mouth waters, words melting along her tongue.

He blinks but his expression doesn't change. The AC shuts on and the vents rattle, filling the apartment with cool air.

The corner of Sai's mouth twitches.

"Do you love him too? Or **hate** him about as much as he hates you? They both _seem_ the same."

"That's not a fair question." She inhales the wet burn of her nose. One tear defeats her resistance and her mouth fills with spit.

"Do you love me?" The darkest thing about Sai is how he never shifts. It's the best and the worst thing about him. "That's a fair question."

It doesn't take long for her entire face to turn red.

"Say you hate me if that's easier." He digs his thumb into her elbow, but it doesn't hurt. Sai would never hurt her. Not intentionally. At some point, she had stopped holding back her tears. He missed the catalyst to her tipping point, too stuck in his own head, searching for signs of anything else.

Naruto had taught him a thing or two about hope, but staring at Ino long enough, he found none.

"I don't feel anything." Ino's watery voice builds up to an incredulous short laugh. It's a very sad, ugly, dejected laugh.

Sai lets go of her arm. It's neither of the answers he has been hoping for. It's much worse. He doesn't move for a moment. They both stand next to each other. Ino has stretched her underwear wringing them around her hands. The fabric pops.

"I've loved you for a long time. There's not an ounce of hatred inside of me, but maybe that's why it's not enough."Is all he says to her as he lowers his head.

At once, Sai understands what Shikamaru meant. It's not internally catastrophic as an epiphany– what matters is what he doesn't feel. He doesn't feel good at all. A spell of ice freezes his body.

Ino stops facing him, turning her head towards her wide open windows. She drowns out all sound, unable to notice the sunset.

All of her endings have been terribly sad. Each and every single one. It's made her less of a sore loser.

At some point, Ino stops crying, crashing back into reality. She loosens her death grip on her underwear and Sai sits on her mountain of clothes. He gapes at her, his lids slowly rising and falling without an inclination to console her– not having the faintest idea how to soothe himself.

The sky is no longer orange, but a very dark purple.

Sinking next to him, Ino wipes her nose along her bare arm then gently dabs the destroyed panties at the corners of her eyes.

"All of my time knowing you, I don't think you've ever been satisfied." Sai's voice is unnaturally hoarse.

She doesn't open her mouth for a few passing minutes. He isn't wrong in his observation. She figures her unhappiness is potent enough to be a tangible thing. It would be off putting to ask him what form her virulent spirit has taken outside of her body.

When she finds the desire to speak her words don't budge. Ino licks her lips, in an attempt to articulate herself but again she only breathes. That's all she can do.

Sai starts to brush the strands of hair from her face out of habit. He takes a tangled lock and tucks it behind her ear, dropping his hand to cup the nape of her neck.

"I'm going to make an executive decision for you." Sai squeezes the space where her shoulders meet her neck.

Ino's eyes follow his movements as he stands.

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Everyone has their own special method of healing.

Isolation is Ino's course of action. While her body is present, her mind is not. Her nerves can't be stimulated by physical touch. Her brain doesn't receive the signals of survival. Gripping the slippery stems of roses, she pricks her fingers as she wraps them in paper. She squeezes her hands against the thorns hard enough to draw blood but she doesn't mentally accept pain.

"Ino, if you frown any harder you will get wrinkles." Not even her mother's low, patronizing tone can break her trance. At this, she questions if it's normal to feel lonely in the presence of a parent.

And how exactly have they stepped around each other without acknowledging the rift in their relationship?

Ino brings her thumb to her lips and sucks away the blood, then her index finger. Eyes flashing from the disarray of cut up tissue paper and clipped stems, she glances at her mother absently.

"What?" Ino mumbles with her finger between her lips.

For a moment, Ino is completely transparent and just as fast as her mother catches a glimpse of it, she immediately carries on away from her daughter– as if the piercing realization of neglected sorrow makes her ill.

Suddenly, Ino's isolation feels less self-inflicted. She watches her mother glide across the shop, dismissing her with a slight wave of the hand.

"I need you to run an errand when you're done sulking about nothing."

Standing straight, Ino drops her hands to her sides. Instead of asking 'what' she keeps her mouth shut and stares across the counter.

"Today is Yoshino and Shikaku's anniversary." Her mother hovers over an assortment of succulents, placing her hands on her hips– she observes them rather distantly.

"Oh." Ino's tone changes slightly. Her stomach flips and her skin tingles. A dizzying warm sensation rises to her temples. Shikamaru infiltrates her conscience. Ino begins to wring her hands, lowering her attention to her sandals. She's standing on a litter of petals.

Her mother places a tiny pot of succulents on the counter, scoots them in front of her.

"Why can't you take it yourself?" It sounds sharper than Ino intends for it to.

"I think she'd get a kick out of seeing you. She's always asking about you, Ino. Somehow you always manage to disappear whenever people want you."

Ino thinks a selfish, bad thought but washes it back with the spit filling her mouth.

"Sure." She straightens her back and proceeds to untie her apron.

Space has done a number on Ino's emotional well being. Too much free time is like a punch to her throat. In the early mornings, when she wakes up alone– that's when the crippling realization of her unhappiness settles. When she asks for guidance, her father's voice is white noise.

Too many years have gone by to expect the emotional work from her mother. It had always been her father's soundness that kept her grounded.

Ino tosses the apron on the counter and scoops up the potted succulent. Before she heads for the door she stops to stare at her mother as she sweeps the floor.

"Mom?"

Lifting her head, she stops sweeping. Her eyes widen as a silent 'yes'.

"Why don't we ever talk?" Ino holds the succulent close to her chest.

"What do you mean? We always talk."

"No. I mean really, _really_ talk?"

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Shikamaru's bitterness has evolved into directionless anger. On a good day, it is his determination to forget what it feels like to be too involved. He thinks to himself every morning, _'At least I wake up in the morning without a knot in my stomach.'_

For a while every moment spent alone he felt a strange sense of guilt. Like he had been depriving his body of water. His head just couldn't fight the intrusion that had been Ino's occupancy.

It takes a habit fourteen days to die. Fourteen days have long passed and it's much easier. The thoughts are still there but less intrusive. If his mind is too occupied with anything but Ino, he is able to function. Though he might move hastily, talk faster, and tap his foot while waiting in long lines, he can focus.

So Shikamaru fills his free time with mindless chores and favors.

Today he troubles himself with the task of grocery shopping for his mother, which he usually does but not with today's enthusiasm.

He thumbs the last of his cigarette into the street, cradling the brown paper bag of goods in his other arm. The symptoms of his good mood beat the sweltering midday heat. Shikamaru feels nothing but wellness. Resilient wellness. Black lungs, throbbing gums, a sour taste in the back of his mouth, but well nonetheless.

That is until he lifts his head from digging in his pockets for the keys to his mother's front door. Ino appears, suddenly and he damns himself for dropping his guard. Wellness. It leaves him like a bad friend. Shikamaru stops five feet away from Ino.

They stare at each other for what could go on an eternity if they didn't have 'better things to do'. This is where he _should_ say 'hello stranger' but everything about her is past familiarity. And she _would_ say something cruel about his yellowing teeth to hide the fact that she has missed him.

They can't say anything because their self-resentment quells the tenderness that caused them to desire each other.

Ino holds up the succulent, nervously drumming her fingers along the pot. "Happy anniversary..." She hums sheepishly, looking directly at his forehead. "My mom thought it would be a nice gift."

Shikamaru shrugs, sucking up his bad feelings, before stepping up to unlock the door.

"Do you have anything nice planned for her?" As much as she wants to set herself on fire, jump his bones, or crawl into a hole and weep, she can't quite stop that part of herself that likes to goad him into some kind of confrontation. It also overcompensates for the intense anxiety that bubbles the acid in her stomach.

He clicks the lock, pushes himself inside and doesn't say a word.

"Nothing planned?" Ino squeaks as she steps behind him. _Nothing_. He won't say anything. She follows him into the kitchen.

Shikamaru busies himself with putting away the groceries in his weird OCD habit of setting things in order. Ino sets the pot on the counter and observes him like a wild animal in its natural habitat. When he moves from the pantry to the fridge, she makes a point to stand in his line vision. Their eyes meet twice. Each time is somewhat deafening to the noise outside the window and their hearts punching against their ribcages and muscles.

"What kind of son are you?" She's oblivious to the bite in her tone. Ino would surrender to the slightest hiss between his teeth. Anything. So she says anything. This doesn't get him to look at her though.

She folds her arms over her chest as he bends into the fridge. Removing and adding and rearranging and doing everything but acknowledging her.

"This isn't how you treat a guest bearing a gift." She says sharply and he slaps the fridge shut. The force is slight but it doesn't go unnoticed.

He makes it look easy but it's nowhere near easy to ignore her. It takes the vast majority of his strength, mental meditation to not give in to impulse. He's got fifty impulses itching to claw out of him and reach for her. With his foresight, none of them end with good results. Shikamaru forgets the carton of eggs and that's where he sets his attention.

"So you're in love with me?"

And he fails. He squeezes the sides of the carton and several eggs crack. Her words freeze him, obliterating the coolness of his unresolved feelings– _issues_ with her. The yolk seeps through his fingers, splattered on his knuckles. A coward turns away and this he is not. Shikamaru gives her exactly what she wants with the sole intent to punish her. How to go about punishing her without physical touch evades him, so his ears burn scarlet. He grinds his teeth.

Ino doesn't flinch nor grimace. Her skin reddens. Out of anger and spite and sadness and grief. She resists the urge to tell him she hates him simply to contradict the universe but it's a lie she can't move herself to speak.

"Someone told me that you're in love me." She reiterates. His glower melts to subtle pain.

Shikamaru wishes he didn't know any better. He has just as many reasons to dislike her as he does to love her.

"Stop it." He says flatly, lifeless, depleted. His hold on the carton loosens. Because he loves her he can't bring himself to speak spitefully. That doesn't mean he will fail ungracefully.

As Ino begins to speak, Yoshino manifests from around the corner. Shikamaru stops holding his breath and slips back into the comfort of his own skin.

The conversation between Ino and Yoshino is one sided noise. _Something something_ about Ino's mother and the past is all her brain can manage to juggle. Ino gives three cursory head nods and a tight lipped hum to a question she has no answer to. Her attention swings from Yoshino's mouth to the back of Shikamaru's neck. She pinches the web between her middle and index finger.

"What happened to my eggs?" Yoshino's heel is slippery from the yolk. She takes two steps back and she grimaces at her son.

Shikamaru closes a cabinet, shrugging, scratching the bridge of his nose with his pinky finger– the pinky that's missing a nail from a battle he refuses to talk about. Ino's ears pop as she swallows.

"I broke 'em." He says as if he's simply telling the time.

"Go buy me some more." Yoshino huffs.

There's an awkward silence. Shikamaru smiles to himself, smugly. Ino imagines his thoughts and hears them in his voice.

"Absolutely." And he strides from the kitchen as if nothing had transpired between them.

Yoshino doesn't speak again until the door slaps shut.

"He hasn't been the same since Temari dumped him." She steps out of the puddle of yolk and broken shells. Ino holds a hand on her stomach to suppress a gag.

"They were engaged you know­– did you know? You two haven't been close in long time."

"I didn't know. He's always been kinda private about stuff like that." Immediately Ino feels bad, takes it personally. The thought of it feels like betrayal and she blanches with disappointment. There's much about Temari they had both gone out of their way not to talk about.

Yoshino wrinkles her nose because she notices. She cradles a roll of paper towels, cants her head as she thinks.

Ino wonders if the pause in their conversation gave it away. The petty part of herself hopes so.

"I found one of my flower pots filled with cigarette butts. You would think, as prideful as he is, he'd be over it by now. If disappointment doesn't kill him that garbage habit definitely will." Yoshino rips a piece from the roll.

"I've told him that. Not verbatim but almost." Ino's voice is small.

"He listens. Just doesn't care."

It takes a lot to not be entirely honest with Yoshino. Yoshino looks as if she's ready to hear what Ino allows to expand in her chest. But it's not the right thing to do.

"I think he cares." Ino drops her arms at her sides. "He's just stubborn."

Smiling, Yoshino bends on her knees and begins to wipe up the yolk.

Ino feels much like an intruder instead of family. The distant memories in the Nara household don't feel as though they belong to her. Like she had picked them up somewhere along the way and stored them for later use. Tiny facts that she shouldn't be privy to. Ammo to use against Shikamaru's vulnerability.

Intimacy seems to destroy more than it heals.

"I shouldn't stay long. I have to help my mom close the shop."

Yoshino looks up, a thought visible on her face, but whatever it is that she is thinking she doesn't express it.

"Sure. Sure. You're not some little kid anymore. You have things to do."

"Always coming and going yeah." Ino manages to smile, albeit a weak one.

When she leaves she takes the long way back, the direction Shikamaru had been walking in, hoping she can steal more of his attention even if it's forced silence. The insistence grows inside of her, becoming a need that has supplemented her ability to focus.

The long way back to the shop is fruitless and she realizes that maybe he took _his_ long way back to avoid her. It's something he would do.

Ino has to poke the fire until the village goes up into flames, but if Shikamaru truly wanted nothing to do with her, he would've hurt her feelings enough to keep her from trying. His ability to forgive is his best and worst trait.

She stops walking three buildings down from the flower shop and begins to wring her hands. Bodies move around her, their energies collapsing around her invisible barrier.

Immediately she realizes that her father had missed out on the most important lesson. After all those years of mastering the reins of her ego, she never learned from either of her parents how to properly apologize.

Home doesn't feel a few feet away. It feels absent and Ino becomes out of place amongst the familiar faces. For a moment she fears that they can see every bad thing she's done and every missed opportunity due to the incredible height of her pride.

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Shikamaru purposely returns home two hours later than Yoshino had expected. The verbal assault would be well worth avoiding any sort of proximity with Ino. In those two hours he had gone through half his box of cigarettes.

The kitchen smells like bleach. Between the fridge and the trashcan the mop still soaks in the bucket, the source of the smell. Every inch of the countertops are spotless. Suds remain around the faucet. The sink is still slick with water. Yoshino had always been a minimalist. Decorations are clutter. Pictures made the walls ugly.

_'Our house looks and smells like a hospital.'_

But she kept the succulent on the kitchen table. _Of course she would_. Why he thought she'd throw it out is beyond him. She didn't raise him to be spiteful...

Shikamaru sets the bag on the table. Drops his keys, cigarettes, loose ryo, lint, wads of crumpled receipts, a half melted stick of gum, all discarded things next to the flower pot.

He has always figured that people who are bitter after failed relationships were weak _. Only an idiot would allow their entire perspective to be shifted by one mistake_.

 _'Well look now'_ , Shikamaru thinks to himself. Almost aloud. _'You're actually a huge moron.'_

To be _that person_ isn't the worst part. It's really the feeling of being torn apart. He wants to feel better but feeling better requires eradicating the lost time. Shikamaru won't betray himself with a lie. He will be a masochist until something else interrupts his head space. Savor what he has until it loses it flavor like chewing gum.

Shikamaru accepts that what he feels for Ino can never be replicated, but there are pretty enough distractions and there is no such thing as too many miles between them.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew so it's been some months. I was going to hold off a little longer and make this the final chapter but my muse has been avoiding me as of late. I sat on this chapter for too long and felt cruel making everyone wait for months over 5k words I already have. So the plan is for the next chapter to be the final and last one no matter what. I'm so sorry for taking to so long. My new job had stolen my soul and it was a very a toxic environment. I intend to finish this story in 2017. Also follow my tumblr if you want drabbles and stuff or just to keep up with updates. (bawgdan.tumblr.com)


	6. Dead Hydrangea

**_“Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes.”_ ** **_~ Clarice Lispector_ **

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Silence, in a way, is the universe holding its breath. In moments of silence, people make wishes, pray, ruin themselves with addictions, become well acquainted with their loneliness... among other things. And when you finally decide to speak, everything manifests itself and the universe breathes with conversation.

Sharp pains spread like roots in Ino's lower abdomen and she bleeds like the universe has inflicted its punishment. It's stupid to think 'for what' because Ino suffers for many things. If it is not her vanity, then surely it must be the cruel way she dodges intimacy. As she ties her apron around her waist she recognizes why she let Sai cover her in his fingerprints. Sai's intimacy was thinner than paper—methodical like a scalpel down the center of a cadaver's torso.

A cramp causes her to groan. She switches on the lights in the back of the shop and all the flowers greet her with their colors. _We've been waiting_ , they say. The headlights buzz and no longer is it silent.

Anemone.

Ino's mother steps from behind her, combing her fingers through a bundle of white carnations, specifically picked by Hinata for her wedding.

"Oh, Ino..." she sighs. Ino recognizes this particular sigh and sucks air through her teeth. "When are you ever going to get married?"

"Are you in that big of a hurry?" Ino fastens her ponytail in a high bun.

"Life is so short, " her mother says with conviction. Ino pauses, abandoning her arms at her side.

"More reason to not sell myself off to some unappreciative asshole, right?"

"Sai is a gentleman."

"Sai is a robot."

"You're impossible to make happy." Her mother wraps the carnations in ribbons, doesn't look up.

"Well children are direct reflections of their parents. I think I get that terrible trait from you." Ino says glibly, stunned.

Childhood has a blinding effect on children. A dark thought presents itself. As Ino watches her mother, she has the thought that she is happy that her father died before her perceptiveness. She stops seeing her _mother_. The veil is snatched off and reveals the widowed Mrs. Yamanaka and what generations of rotten tough love could do a family.

Ino presses her tongue against her teeth because the insult is minor, but she does wonder about the things she missed regarding her father.

She follows her mother to the front of the shop. The white carnations hang over her arm, curling around her bony elbow. Age, stress, grief, and unspoken things crease the skin around the corner of her mother's eyes. Ino sees that her mother is human.

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It's hard not to envy Hinata's happiness. Her face brightens with excitement when she meets Ino's distant stare, doesn't seem offended when Ino delays her smile. That's what makes Hinata so likeable as a woman–she's willing to pretend that she is always so oblivious.

Ino stands beside her mother while Hinata and Hanabi observe the pale carnations.

"They look so plain." Hanabi pinches a petal.

Defeat causes Ino's mouth to feel dry. A very quick sensation of being split in two stills her.

"That's what makes them so great." Her mother starts. "Believe it or not, most of our brides think they are too cheap."

"You would like carnations. Looking at anything else would be a waste of time." Ino interjects absently. She doesn't hold her eyes anywhere in particular.

"They are _cheap_." Hanabi rests her hands on her hips.

"Only because they aren't in _fashion_." Ino mutters, air quoting.

Hinata has the ability to hide herself in plain sight. Everyone around her talks, but she observes under a hood of muted interest. Sai had said that if she weren't a Hyuuga, she'd specialize in taking apart timepieces for a living. Hinata gathers the flowers into her arms and Ino's mother smiles. They both smile and Ino cruelly thinks that maybe she is the wrong kind of daughter for not being like Hinata.

The feeling worsens when the flowers seem perfect against the color of her skin and the depthless cloudiness of her eyes. Simple women are happy girlfriends. Happy girlfriends never want anything in return, which makes them uncomplicated wives.

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The pink _gladiolus_ droops around Kurenai's face. She cranes her neck, combing through the leaves and stems to get a better look at Ino.

"And what are these suppose to mean?" Kurenai's house smells like her perfume. It always has. Ino doesn't understand why she always expects it not to. Kurenai hasn't changed much at all but everything around her has.

"They represent resilience and strength." Ino has a moment of clarity–survival doesn't necessarily mean sharpen your edges.

Kurenai's face brightens and she continues to be the prettiest person Ino knows. She feels undeserving of her smile, but Ino also acknowledges that she sees Kurenai through a rose-tinted lens. The toys scattered on the floor don't readily speak _mother_ nor does sink filled with unwashed cups point to the stress of loneliness.

 _Are you lonely? Ino wonders_. If so, you make it look easy.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Kurenai searches for a vase but ends up filling a glass pitcher with water.

Ino follows her in and out of the kitchen, through the short hallway and to the crammed family room. Ino notices a blanket and pillows strewn along the couch. Initially she thinks Kurenai must sleep here but why not her bed?

"You think so highly of me still...,I don't know if I should be proud or embarrassed." Kurenai says after the long pause.

"What do you mean?" Ino stands by the open window, propping an elbow on the sill.

Kurenai sits on the arm of her couch, sticks out her bottom lip as she thinks, appearing much younger than she is.

"You know when you become an adult, all of your superiors, even your parents stop being voices of authority and just become people."

"Yea." Ino chews the inside of her jaw. The AC shuts on and the house hums, a door creaks gently.

"I have this small fear, well, I dislike the idea of Mirai no longer seeing me as mom, but I know it's going to happen. I was your age when it happened to me."

"I don't really know what to say to that." Ino regrets being honest the moment Kurenai visibly deflates, sliding from the arm of the couch into the pillows.

"Woman to woman, Ino...", Kurenai rubs the side of her face, "...It doesn't get any worse from here but it also doesn't get much better."

"I don't know if I enjoy your fatalistic side." Ino smiles weakly.

"That shows me that you still hold me to that same childhood standard."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No." Kurenai says softly.

"If I'm going to be completely honest, I don't feel much like a woman anyway." Ino stands away from the window, stepping over a pile of plastic building blocks.

"I guess that depends on your definition of womanhood." Eyes widening, Kurenai seems to wait for her to say something profound.

"I don't think I have one." _Not one that feels correct_. What she thought she knew hasn't been working. Her mother is dissatisfied enough for the both of them.

Kurenai begins to speak but the front door's lock clicks and she abandons the conversation. Ino drops into a chair feeling some relief.

"Look who's home!" Kurenai rises from the couch, leaving her somberness in the sunken space of the cushions.

"I think I exhausted her..." Shikamaru's voice alone dictates how Ino will feel for the next three hours. The emptiness of her stomach expands. She sits up and watches him pass a sleeping Mirai to her mother.

"That means less work for me." Kurenai closes the door behind him. "You got back just in time to see Ino before she leaves."

Shikamaru catches himself mid-frown, but he doesn't quite straighten his lips. Ino doesn't smile or speak. It's physically impossible.

Mirai stirs and Kurenai's motherly priorities make her oblivious to their silence. She vanishes somewhere inside of the house and Mirai begins to cry.

He stands for exactly three minutes before deciding that it would be rude to just leave and that he should at least sit and wait to say bye. Ino unfolds her legs to leave but when he sits across from her, her heart wills her to stay.

They both share a glance before quickly averting their attention to empty spaces. Ino folds her hands in her lap. She never realizes how much she misses him until they are within close proximity of each other. It's not exactly his physical presence that she wants. She just misses his effort.

"I really took for granted your manners." Ino's jokes never feel funny. They are always patronizing even when she's not trying. He flares his nostrils at her statement.

"You still don't have any manners." Shikamaru makes his signature disgruntled face.

"Well what do you want me to say?" She shrugs.

"It's what I don't want you to say really. Can we not argue here or now or ever again? Please?" He folds his arms and lays his head against the back of the couch.

Mirai cries harder.

Ino weighs her eyes on him but his are tightly shut.

"Shikamaru, I don't think Kurenai is happy. I mean. She's not _unhappy_ , but she's not _happy,_ happy."

"I know."

"I don't think she sleeps in her bed."

"I know." He stiffens.

"We all lost a lot, but I couldn't imagine losing what _they_ had."

"You don't believe in soulmates."

"Shikamaru..." Her throat tightens. "You act like I'm allergic to change."

"You have yet to prove me wrong."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" He lowers his chin and looks at her differently. It makes her skin hot.

"You know what."

Shikamaru hesitates, _gracefully_ infuriated. Grinding his teeth, his cheeks turn red.

"I want to hear you say it." He quiets his tone, meditating so that he doesn't burst.

"I'm sorry for hurting you."

In the present moment, it doesn't feel like enough. Kurenai reappears before he can respond.

"Kids are great when you can just return them!" She floats between them to close the blinds.

He gets up a little too fast and his head swims.

"I should get going."

Kurenai whips her head around. "Wait! Wait! I haven't been in the same room with you two in forever."

Ino holds her head down, staring down at the spots of sunlight on the floor boards.

"I can come by later." He genuinely smiles.

"Ino will you come by again later? And you should bring Choji!" Not even Kurenai's excitement can saw through their tension.

Ino gapes at Kurenai then Shikamaru. What she _should_ say can't move past her tongue. Even if she meant to say anything at all, Shikamaru sweetly forces a farewell that doesn't give Kurenai the time to persuade him.

"I feel like I missed something?" Kurenai holds out her hands, gesturing at Ino for an explanation.

Ino shakes her head.

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She can't outrun the burn of consequence. Everyone and everything remind her of the hole she has allowed to grow inside of herself. Her confidence is of little value if she cannot think straight. This is exactly what she has been trying to avoid but it also speaks volumes that Sai, in no capacity, has never made her feel this way.

"Ino!" Sakura disturbs her train of thought.

"Sakura..." Ino almost knocks over a shelf of wine.

"My conscience wouldn't allow me not to speak." Sakura holds a box of cereal under an arm and grips a two-liter soda.

"I wouldn't have held it against you." Ino rubs the back of her neck.

Sakura leans in and squints, the corner of her mouth twitching.

"What?"

"You have no idea, do you? That's so unlike you..."

"Maybe I'm experiencing some personal growth. I'm never the same person I was five minutes ago." Ino pretends to scan the different bottles of wine.

"Sai didn't tell you?"

"I haven't talked to Sai in two weeks. As you do when you're not a couple anymore."

"So he dumped you and didn't tell you?"

"What, Sakura? What is it that you know that I should know? Otherwise you're being nosey."

 

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As it was expected, between Choji and Shikamaru, Ino never showed up later. Shikamaru is thankful for it, though he knew she wouldn't, there's always the possibility. Kurenai doesn't show that it hurts her feelings, but she mentions her absence three times. It horrifies her that neither of them could give her a clear reason as to why Ino's presence is so scarce.

"I think I'm going to propose to Karui." Choji cleans his teeth with a toothpick.

"Oh really?" Kurenai stops shuffling a deck of cards.

"Yup."

"Better sooner than later, before she realizes what a loser you are." Shikamaru nods approvingly.

"She already knows I'm a loser–that makes you a loser by association." Choji smiles.

"Geeze, I'm getting so old. Well I'm happy if you're happy." Kurenai lets loose a very long sigh.

"Shikamaru, I now understand what your old man meant. We really aren't any good without women. At least I'm not. You should probably avoid them for another three years. I think you're cursed."

"Oh noooo! Shikamaru, do you have bad taste in women?" Kurenai breaks the deck in half, tapping them against the table.

"I might."

"Man, you really do."

"You honestly don't know the half of it." Shikamaru smirks.

"Temari was a nice girl. Tough, but nice." Kurenai blows a strand of hair from her face.

"Temari was fine. It's everything after. Honestly, the little I do know is appalling." Choji slaps Shikamaru's back.

"Choji, you should tell me since he's clearly not going to! I feel left out."

"No. Please no. I want you to still think I'm harmless and swell."

Kurenai sets the cards down, folds her arms on the table and looks at him with one eye closed, lips wrinkling as she looks him up and down. "Whatever you do, don't turn into Kakashi."

"He's Hokage. Why wouldn't I want to be Kakashi?" Shikamaru reaches for his glass of water. Choji nods in agreement.

"Don't get hung up on one girl. Sometimes we have to court a bunch of mistakes before we get it right." She pinches his elbow. "Funny story, I told Asuma no for a long time."

"Why?" Shikamaru and Choji ask simultaneously.

"Why not?" She jokingly counters but their sincere disbelief doesn't amuse her for too long. Kurenai holds up her hands to show that no blood stains her fingers. Not all crimes are dirty. However, the guilt of wasting so much time has sunken deep within her bones. When she moves too fast, her ankles pop and this is how her body condemns her.

"Sometimes our mental just doesn't catch up with our bodies fast enough. Fast company doesn't help either." She rests a cheek in her hand.

"That's way too cryptic for me... and sounds like a bad excuse." Choji grumbles and she smiles.

"Makes perfect sense to me." Shikamaru has been holding onto his now empty glass.

"All we have is hope and time, right?" The tip of Kurenai's nose is red.

A moment happens. It's empty but doesn't require them to fill it. A long stretch of undeclared time. Kurenai begins to shuffle the cards again. They haven't agreed on any game–she fiddles because her hands should always be doing something when she isn't cleaning vomit or wiping away tears.

It's safe to observe that Choji is the happiest person at the table.

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"Remember when we were kids...?" Sakura loves to talk about the past. It's almost like she loves to revisit old things to spite Ino.

"No. I don't remember." Ino remembers everything. What she isn't sure of? If she genuinely likes Sakura's company. For now, she doesn't mind that Sakura takes up space in her apartment. Maybe tomorrow.

Always evolving and changing her mind, her life has felt like an uncomfortable hallucination. She's either entirely herself or unrecognizable. Like now. Does Ino Yamanaka truly like this adult Sakura or is this remnants of a dream? Could the hour be distorted by some childhood memory?

Ino has to remember everything because she is prone to full circles.

Sakura closes her mouth, wrinkles her lips but she is not surprised. She's learned to never be surprised with Ino.

"Remember that time we tried to make our own garden?"

"Yeah and nothing grew." Ino untwists the cap of her red nail polish.

"I was so mad. I'm still mad because you're supposed to have a green thumb."

Ino is supposed to be many things: c _onfident, decisive, unwilling to settle, evolving and....?_  She hasn't worn red nails in a long time. It never seemed to match but she is a different person every five, ten, fifteen minutes.

"I think you just don't like responsibility." Sakura watches Ino paint her thumb.

"That's not true at all!" Ino paints her cuticles.

"If it weren't true then Sai would not have felt the need to ruin everyone's evening and that garden would've grown and..."

" _Puh-lease_ , Sakura. You know you enjoyed that shit show for what it was. Everyone likes a little drama." Ino can't believe herself but she pretends that it doesn't bother her. She somewhat speaks with her teeth clenched and keeps her eyes on her red nails, but her attention is everywhere.

"And we would be better friends..." Sakura folds her hands in her lap and she drops her gaze on her knees.

The outside air blows through the window, the curtains rise and billow around the potted plants. Ino's apartment smells like soil and sugary scented body lotion–a charming fusion of spring and candy that reminds Sakura of pink lemonade.

"Do you really think I thrive on your shortcomings?" Sakura whispers loudly.

Ino takes a moment to respond because, truth be told, she has no rebuttal. It angers her that Sakura has read her mind and it angers her how ridiculous it sounds outside of her head. She could say **_yes_** just to be antagonistic and **_no_** is simultaneously true and false.

"You really shouldn't think the worst of people, Ino. Not everyone is stupid or out to get you." Sakura rises, but she waits for Ino to say something. People have been doing this lately. Waiting for Ino to either tell the truth or lie to make them feel better– _anything_.

"I know." Ino looks up at her childhood friend.

"Sasuke says he's going to take me on a mission."

"Oh?"

"Yea. I'm telling you because I want to have a real conversation."

A memory of Sakura crying projects itself. Their roles had reversed. Sakura used to be that unhappy person and Ino used to have all the answers.

_'Don't worry, Sakura. We've got this together.'_

"I'm happy for you." Ino doesn't wish to know the state of their romance. She knows it's tragic but if a romantic mission can make Sakura happy (temporarily before she finds something else to be upset about), then who is Ino to judge?

Sakura nods but keeps her chin lowered, waiting for something else. There isn't anything else, but it takes her three minutes to realize this.

"I guess I should get going. Later right?" Sakura gathers her bags of groceries.

Ino stands to help her. "Yea yea. Sure."

It clicks then–why Sakura can't divorce herself from the past. She has to remember the small good things in order to excuse the big bad things. Seeing people for who they are is what Ino excels at, one of the few things she gets right. Understanding everyone else but herself.

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A flower pulled from the soil typically takes a week to die. The moment it's cut, in a way, it's already dead. It's just a matter of slowing down the process of decay. _A room full of dead flowers to celebrate the sealed fate of two soulmates._

Ino can't decide if she actually likes weddings. She stands in the middle of the chaos, twisting and untwisting a ring, that her father had given her a long time ago, on her middle finger. Her mother floats from table to table with vases. Each vase is different but doesn't stray from the theme of white.

It's nice to see carnations in fashion. Hinata couldn't have picked a better flower. Mrs. Yamanaka's wide brimmed hat is pinned with white carnations. The ribbon slips over her shoulders as she sets another table with flowers and candles.

The wedding planner whispers something to Ino's mother that blanches her face. In that moment, Mrs. Yamanaka looks very human. She turns to look at her daughter with a dissatisfied expression that's not quite a frown. It's like staring into her own reflection at seven o'clock in the morning. The wedding planner walks away and Ino just knows, it's knowledge that had been instilled in her the day she got her first heartbeat, that she should fix whatever mistake her mother had made to make up for her little patience. Ino walks to stand by her mother.

"They can't find the bridal party bouquets." She doesn't look at Ino as she lights a candle.

"Anywhere?" Ino chews the inside of her jaw.

"Nowhere."

Without saying much of anything else, Ino strides away to search for the missing bundles of dead flowers. Her heels crunch on a wad of plastic, but she doesn't stop. As she slaps a thick ribbon from falling on her face, stepping under a ladder, Ino wonders when the hype will infect her. She makes a mental note, to play a game with herself–she will take a shot for every person that cries.

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"Don't you hate that feeling you get when you clearly have done something but don't remember doing it at all?" Shikamaru stares into the midday sky.

"Like knowing you locked the front door but not being able to remember actually doing it?" Karui picks a leaf from her hair.

"Yea. That exactly." He hasn't had a cigarette all morning, doesn't want his good clothes to smell like tobacco nor his mother to leer at him the entire event.

Choji impatiently cracks his knuckles and as if they are invisibly linked together, Karui pops her toes. It's the sixth time they've concurrently expressed, without awareness, that they are now a unit. One cannot exist without the other and they've achieved this level of intimacy without sucking each other's faces off in public or holding hands. It's funny to watch their relationship flourish without a trace of romance.

Karui rubs her arms and puts all of her weight on one hip but she never stands too far away. They are more like inseparable friends than two people who share a bed and swap spit.

Choji often says she's like a habit and when Shikamaru rebutted that people shouldn't feel like habits, he lifted a finger and mimicked Shikamaru's way of powerfully saying a whole lot of nothing to make a point–" _Waking up every morning and brushing your teeth is a habit right...?"_

A fact that Shikamaru couldn't argue, to which he had replied. _"Yes."_

_"And if you don't brush your teeth, your mouth will rot right?"_

_"Of course...so..."_

_"So it's a habit that we like having because it makes us healthy. You do brush your teeth everyday... **right**?"_

Eventually it made sense. It only took a while to sink in because Shikamaru isn't used to his philosophy being challenged.

_Is Karui the habit itself or the toothbrush?_

The wedding guests stand around for what feels like an eternity. It's that pocket of time after the ceremony but before the reception were people shovel napkin food in their mouths. It's an isolating feeling for Shikamaru. He's not unhappy but he isn't exactly ecstatic about being here.

This will be the start of many more weddings and 'happy' news. He sees it ahead of him–a very long period of time doing things alone. For as long as _their_ unfinished arguments and unresolved tension (be it sexual or mental) can penetrate his conscience, Shikamaru will continue to dodge anything that feels a little bit like vulnerability.

Choji interrupts his 'melancholic meditation' with a sharp nudge in his side.

One bad memory fades like an old filmstrip and he's back in the unconcerned real world.

Among the many everyday faces, Temari is the stranger. She's not a skeleton stepping from his closest, he stopped feeling that strongly a while ago. Shikamaru doesn't feel anything, at least not right away. Not as she approaches them. He feels more grounded in reality if anything, like he's trained many years for this eventual circumstance.

Temari's smile is foreign but he understands that she hardly uses the muscles in her face. It's why she barely has laugh lines. To see her smile at all, unprovoked, it's like only knowing someone entirely through gossip and not firsthand experience.

Choji and Karui are warmer than he can ever pretend to be.

God is good to him though. The reception starts and saves him from the awkward judgment of Karui and Choji as they are swept away by their impatience. Like bees flocking to their hive, the small talk disperses and the long hallway feels less dense. Temari lingers behind with Shikamaru, as he had expected.

No one would notice because it's not their day.

"I'm mad at you." But Temari says it in a way that hints to questioning her own logic.

"It must be," he shrugs his shoulders, gesturing at nothing in particular,"Something I didn't do?"

"So you're admitting that you're guilty? That sure as hell wasn't an apology." Temari is still attractive to him, especially in a dress. Sliding his hands back into his pockets, he humors her by saying nothing.

"You just left. Didn't drop by at all..."

"I was on duty and if you really wanted to see me, communication works both ways."

"If you _wanted_ to see me then you would've made the effort." Temari's frown warps her entire face.

"I never _not_ want to see you."

"You were there for a week, Shikamaru."

At this point, neither of them understands exactly why they are arguing at Naruto's wedding. It occurs to Shikamaru that a wedding is a perfect place for a body to go missing.

"I'm sorry." He means it, but not like he used to.

Temari knows he's not a liar so really, there is no way she can prolong the conversation.

"You hold the nastiest of grudges, Temari." He gives her the chance to win so that she can have a better day, despite that it just isn't hers to claim.

"Believe it or not, you do too. You don't think you do, but you most definitely do." She says nothing else. She waits for him to counter her but he doesn't and when she realizes that he won't make her feel better, she storms towards the reception.

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Usually, Ino knows how to conduct herself in a room filled with people, but she is a fish swimming in a bowl, observing the blurry outside world. She imagines a candle toppling over and setting a table on fire.

"Well this isn't anything like you." Sai startles her and she chokes on her wine. It takes three minutes for her to gather herself. _If only Sai were like normal people_ –angry and scorned.  Ino resists the urge to ask him why the hell is he bothering, but he just can't help himself. Sai's brain doesn't understand things like antipathy. Let alone nihilism.

"What do you mean?" Ino quips.

"You're typically sociable is all."

"And you're typically anti-social."

It takes a minute for Sai to deconstruct whether she is joking or making a serious observation. When the invisible light bulb flickers on, he smiles and nods in agreement.

This prompts her to participate in a rolled dice of interactions, because it would be rude not to. Just because she should do it doesn't mean it is required that she be herself one hundred percent.

By chance, she is able to steal another glass of wine and becomes just as ornamental to the gathering as the decorations pinned to the wall. She slips out into the Hyuuga garden and it is shockingly colder outside than it is inside. The sun took all of its warmth behind the red-orange clouds.

But she's not alone. To the left of her, Shikamaru is crouched near a bush, in the middle of lighting a cigarette.

He gives her an expressionless look over his shoulder, sliding the cigarette into his mouth. Ino falters, tripping over the wrong step of her heel. The wine sloshes onto her dress, sprinkling on her toes. She mumbles a soft 'shit'.

Shikamaru exhales a cloud of smoke that swirls around the sides of his face. Ino inflates her cheeks, not exactly sure if she should be mortified by her now ruined dress or the bad timing they both seem to have.

"I don't think they'd appreciate cigarette butts in their garden." She sniffs.

"Then I will just put it in my pocket." His voice surprises her.

"Tacky. So very tacky." She clicks her tongue.

"You know what else is tacky? Not wearing a bra." Shikamaru winces at her, sticking out his bottom lip and inhales the smoke up his nose. Ino pauses and looks down where the wine had soaked into her chest. Indeed, her nipples are very visible.

"And it's been like that for a while." He says dryly.

"Should I be flattered or horrified that you've been watching me?"

"I haven't been watching you. Your nipples have been watching me and the whole damn wedding."

Ino sucks in a breath and grinds her teeth. The apples of her cheeks color bright red. She has never been able to decipher when he's telling the truth or joking.

"You're trying to rile me up." She takes a sip from her glass.

"What's the benefit in that? You're always riled up or on edge and losing your shit..."

Clearly, something is bothering him. It's brief but he gives her a glimpse of a tiny emotion when he scowls. She knows this particular scowl.

"Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt if I vanished then. No one would notice" is all she can think to say.

"No, they wouldn't." In this way he reveals that he had been joking about her leering nipples.

"We could hide a dead body here in this garden. They'd never know."

Shikamaru makes a small noise and she sees the ghost of a smile, but its short. He lets go when he puts out his cigarette and stands.

"I wouldn't trust you to hide a dead body." He puts the rest of the cigarette in his pocket.

"You know I can keep a secret."

"It's not that. You're just bad at lying and really bad at being inconspicuous."

"Pft. You're really bad at..." Ino drawls, wrinkling her nose as she thinks of something imperfect about him. There isn't a thing. "You're just really bad and unfunny.

"You're just difficult... for the sake of being difficult." This time, Shikamaru doesn't reach to massage the space between his brows. He stares straight ahead as if he can see beyond the garden and clean through the universe–because they have done this since they were children.

"I think you just dislike me. Still. Even after being under my clothes." Ino throws her head back to chug her wine.

"I don't dislike you and you know this. Now you're just being facetious."

Shikamaru's hard tone momentarily quiets her.

"Maybe." She stares into her empty wine flute, shrugging. _What really is there to say to someone you used to sleep with?_ He hasn't directly looked at her and this causes her to feel bad. She can't quite look at him for too long either without wanting to run.

"For what though? It's just me." The space between his words emphasize the lost time and the pain comes from how hard he looks at _nothing_.

Ino could say something severe. She has all the ammo in the world to ruin his day, but she closes her mouth and decides to surprise him for the sake of being honest. There's not much anyone can say to someone they used to sleep with but there's only one way to admit fault to someone who loves you.

She parts her lips to spite the way she has been for many damn years, but he speaks first.

"Can we at least just be friends?" He turns and their eyes meet with equal perceptiveness, but Ino's sentiment dies in her chest before it reaches her throat. Her sense of fight collapses.

 **No.** She screams in her head, shattering the walls that held together all of her unrealized hopes.

"Let's just put this all behind us and move on. It's stupid and avoiding you is even dumber and our moms are friends..."

And he says more things but Ino stops listening. She watches his mouth and all else fails to bring her back.

"... Ok?" He holds out his hand like they are distant acquaintances forming a truce. Ino almost drops her glass. Her skin turns icy.

She thinks to just tell him but the gesture destroys her and for the very first time, he doesn't seem to notice that it's not quite what she wants. Or if he does, he has little to no interest in solving what she desires.

Ino reluctantly takes his hand. If she had never been taught how to be indestructible, she would've crumbled at the familiarity of their skin touching. When he breaks their handshake, there's the sensation of something stuck in her windpipe.

"We're cool?" His stare becomes vacant, unlike all the times he's ever been sad.

And she believes what she sees. Shikamaru has never been a liar.

"Sure... yes." Ino lets him walk away. No shuriken to the back. No venom. Complete surrender.

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Shikamaru stares at the ceiling of his old bedroom, hand cupping his mouth, inhaling the smoke-like smell on his fingers. Surrounding his bed are boxes. Some full and some are empty. With every finished book, there typically is a resolution. Shikamaru's last chapter ends with him moving out of his apartment and back in with his mother. His apartment never felt like his home. It was a stationary point of safety that he dumped money into. In a way, it was only symbolic of his adulthood, but the older he gets, the more he realizes that owning a money hole and being alone for the sake of being alone isn't exactly as fulfilling as he had hoped.

Expectations are definitely dream killers.

It isn't healthy to blame Ino for his sudden dissatisfaction. An itty bitty part of himself has always been hard to please, but she had set off a domino effect of reactions to his current situation. He is fatherless which means that half of him is gone. The world doesn't ask him to pretend that this isn't a fact but it upsets him that everyone around has adopted an 'Okay-ness'.

Save for Ino, but a warm body can't be the salve to individual sorrow.

Shikamaru sits up in his twin-sized bed to scowl out of his window.

Maybe he should apologize to Ino for mistaking her as a way out of his head.

Truth be told, what Temari had said to him has bothered him sleepless.

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Magnified by the window, the sun warms the left side of Ino's body as she reorganizes a display of sunflowers. Mundane activities help a lot. If she keeps herself busy she won't have to think about Sasuke taking Sakura on a mission. How does Sakura manage to squeeze a romantic escape out of Sasuke? Maybe they are secretly getting married. She winces. _Why does she care_?

Coupling isn't a merit to success. She could buy her own damn house and fill it up with her own furniture. Instead of the perfect man she will have the perfect cat.

 _"You're going to be a terribad housewife_. _That tasted like sugary mud_." Shikamaru had spat out the cookies she made. Everyone else seemed to have liked them. She remembers how he smeared the crumbs and his spit on his sleeve. They were only eleven.

" _You would know what mud tastes like, dirt eater_ ," She protested.

" _At least I know what a cookie is s'posed to taste like_."

Ino's bang falls in her face and she pins it back to her scalp with a bobby pin. Mundane activities also welcome unwanted memories. She stops and observes her red nails against the dull color of the wooden crate. Soil collected around her finger nail, darkening the thin skin of her cuticle.

Ten minutes, and during that while, she becomes a peppier version of herself.

The shop's door opens and the uneventful bustle of outside floats in. The bell rings and the door shuts and the quiet of indoors is sealed shut. Ino takes a moment to breathe. She stands from her crouched position and wipes her hands on her sides.

Peppy Ino's smile has enough shine to feed the flowers, but her lips crinkle when she faces Shikamaru who imitates her bewilderment. They both look lost for a very brief time. Ino speaks first.

"I was just thinking about you." Her smile is now crooked–actually between a smile and the pinched look of smelling something.

"Good things I hope." He takes his hands from his pockets.

"Bad things." She says too readily in jest.

"That shouldn't surprise me." Shikamaru folds his arms.

Uncertainty is wedged between them. It always has been.

"You have always been my personal antagonist." She thinks he was specifically made for that reason. Neither a hero nor villain can exist without each other.

Ino lowers her head as she reaches to stroke a sunflower. She hasn't been able to unlearn their carnal openness. Her body reminds her with an explosion of warmth in her stomach.

"I never mean to be." He finally says.

"I know you don't, Shikamaru."

"I meant what I said at the wedding..."

Ino lifts her head to look at him directly.

"... and... Ino, I accept your apology."

"That makes me happy. I've missed you in that casual way that friends miss each other." Much more than that. It's unquantifiable and senseless.

He hesitates. Shikamaru rarely hesitates. Her heart climbs in her throat.

"I was just moving all of my shit into boxes and realized life is too short to hold on to grudges."

"Moving? Where are you going?"

"Barely down the street..."

Before Ino can question him any further, a regular patron shrills a 'good morning'. Though the village is small, there are names that escape him. Like pictures of strangers in the background of a personal photograph. Ino's thoughts are stunted and she stumbles away from him to deal with her customer.

Their conversation, or lack of, hangs in the air like an abandoned riddle. He tightens a hand into a fist.

With all of her flaws, Ino isn't bad with people. She's succinct but not in a cold way. Her first love is herself and second comes her knowledge of flowers and third is her desire to please people–which is her best and worst trait.

For a split second, maybe two, Ino steals an apologetic glance.

Shikamaru realizes that if he were meant to be in her life, he would be her second or third. He's not selfish enough to demand to be her first. There's no room for anyone and there never has been.

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Ino thinks about Sakura and Sasuke more than she wants to. She wonders if Sakura's unrelenting need to try so hard for so long had been driven by a predetermined future. Sasuke lacked the vision for it, perhaps he still does, but Sakura wakes up every morning knowing where her heart should be–because it's already spread out in front of her. Not in order, she's working on organizing it, but it's all there waiting for her to make it right. That kind of certainty about anything is a power worth envying.

Ino wakes up, brushes her teeth, spends fifteen minutes deciding on what pair of panties she should wear, and then spends fifteen more minutes indecisive about breakfast. Then it hits her as she stuffs her face with a slice of bread.

The echoing of a snap in the dark rattles in her head.

She doesn't bother to prepare herself a proper meal. Ino hops into her sandals, swallowing the hard lump of bread.

As she heads out the door, she thinks to herself– _does having your mind made up always feel this satisfying?_

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"I think I know a thing that you don't." Choji pulls the sucker from his mouth. His tongue is bright blue.

Making a humming noise, Shikamaru presses a strip of tape down on a box filled with plastic bowls _. You can never have too many plastic bowls_.

 "Synchronicity. Do you know what that is?" Choji smacks his tongue.

Shikamaru drops the box on the floor, stretches his mouth into a frown and tilts his head to the side. He knows what synchronicity is but sometimes he finds amusement in pretending to learn something new. Choji is one of the best storytellers–he can make a lie sound scientifically proven.

"It's the happenstance..." Choji shoves the blueberry sucker back into his mouth.

"Happenstance is synonymous with coincidence," Shikamaru says pointing a finger.

"A series of _happenstances_ that loosely relate to each other. Like waking up at seven in the morning and drawing the number seven card."

"Many coinkydinks. Gotchu."

"Can I feel like the smart one for once?" Choji continues to busy himself with boxing the canned foods.

Shikamaru doesn't respond. They work in a complete silence only old friends can obtain.

The doorbell disrupts their happy, content quiet. Shikamaru sets down the roll of tape, rubbing his eye as he approaches the door.

He opens the front door and Ino greets him with a bag full of chips and off-brand soda. His guts turn before his ears turn red.

"Oh great, you're still moving! I bear gifts." Her smile is more confident than her tone.

Shikamaru still doesn't know how to look at her and not feel strange. If his brain isn't remembering what she looks like without her clothes on, then he focuses on the fluffiness of her cheeks.

Without an invitation, not that she's ever needed one, Ino ducks under his arm and steps around him. Shikamaru stands in place for a short while as he absorbs what _could_ transpire. She could argue with Choji or this could be a perfectly awkward occurrence where neither of them speaks to each other.

Enough time has passed for them to be strangers. Ageing does this to people and it can't be helped.

Choji balks at her.

"Oh geeze." He fakes a sneeze.

Ino holds the bag of junk-food close to her chest, takes a seat in a metal folding chair, stares back at Choji with natural determination. All three of them slip back into a routine, but it's like a favorite shirt that doesn't fit anymore. Shikamaru closes the door behind him and watches them.

Ino wiggles her foot. Choji wrinkles the corners of his nose.

"Stranger." Choji regards her with a slight nod, biting down on the rest of his sucker and swallows all of the tiny pieces.

"Neighbor." Ino snorts.

"Guys!" Shikamaru claps his hands between them.

Choji stomps a foot and slaps a hand down on his thigh, holding his breath, turning his head to the side.  The gesture hurts Shikamaru's feelings–it feels like he has broken a promise they never made. Being seen as weak is one thing, there's no shame in sometimes falling short. However, being a disappointment is a different level of pain that has no remedy but to be _better_.

Shikamaru doesn't know how to be better about Ino. He would feel the same way about Choji, so he sinks to his knees with a watery laugh, folding his arms across his chest. His laugh melts into a long uncertain sigh.

Not tearing her eyes from Choji, Ino rummages through the plastic bag for the barbeque flavored chips. Choji doesn't blink as she tosses the bag in his lap.

"Water under the bridge?" She says this without a smile.

Pulling the white stem from his mouth, he fists the bag with his stubby fingers, thinking for a few minutes that feel ike a very long time.

"No." Choji pops the bag open, releasing the sour smell.

Shikamaru's shoulders sag, but oddly enough, being the anchor is normal. It occurs to him that he has been everyone's catalyst in some shape or form.

"You know, most thieves are people you've let into your house numerous times, right?" Choji starts, stuffing a handful of chips into his mouth.

Ino doesn't twitch. She listens without a rebuttal. Shikamaru winces at the slick sound of Choji's tongue smacking against the roof of his mouth.

"Would you forgive said thief for returning what they took from your house?" He swallows.

"I don't know. Maybe. Eventually." Ino uncrosses her legs.

"Would you still invite them over for dinner?"

"Probably not."

"There's my answer." Choji ham-fists more chips into his mouth with punctuated crunches.

"Time solves everything." Shikamaru mumbles loud enough for them to hear.

"Now is not the time to be stubborn, Shikamaru. Your optimism always shows up at the worst time." Choji shakes his head.

Ino continues to gaze at Choji without emotion. Her brows furrow but she shows no visible signs of aggravation.

"Why a thief, Choji? She hasn't stolen anything. That's so _morbid_." Shikamaru stands and Choji stands with him.

"She stole your time. Ok, she's not a thief but she definitely knows how to squander away valuable resources." Choji finishes the bag of chips, crumples it in a fist and says to her, "Ino, you're a professional time waster."

"Ok. Yea. I am."  Ino beats Shikamaru to speaking first.

Children playfully scream outside. The growing energy of three souls suck a draft from the open window. A lot of history is crammed inside of Shikamaru's apartment. They have enough memories to fill each room to the ceiling.

Ino begins to cry, but not in her usual loud way of expressing her feelings.

"It's not my fault that you've never taken the time to understand me." She wipes away a tear with the back of her hand. The tone of her voice is well contained."You never have."

"You're an asshole and being one doesn't make you multifaceted nor hard to understand." He waves a hand in disbelief.

"Choji..." Shikamaru sinks his face into a palm, pressing his fingers against an eyelid.

"No! She's been an asshole for years and for what? Just because she pretended to be your girlfriend for a short amount of time doesn't absolve her of the bullshit."

"Well what is it that you want me to do about it?" Ino shrugs her shoulders.

"Just tell me why a ' _fatty_ ' like me should take time out of his day to unpack what makes you the way you are when you have never offered that to me?" Choji stops with the bag of chips, his cheeks turning a faint red. This is exactly what he has wanted but now he's not entirely sure what to do with her tears.

Ino opens her mouth but she has nothing to say.

"I guess we will never know. Clearly me and you aren't Sai." Choji says to Shikamaru. "And even he got the short end of the stick so I guess Ino is only in solidarity with her selfishness. That's quite the appetite to have for yourself."

With that, Choji claps all of the air out of the bag, crumbles it up into his fist and frowns, slowly shaking his head.

"Better to have a huge gut than a huge head. That's what dad used to tell me." Again, he speaks to Shikamaru.

They had not only been mourning the dead, but also mourning the time it has taken to adapt to change. Not the small things like their bones expanding and becoming taller. Simply the nature of life falling apart, rebuilding itself.

"Choji, we were kids." Shikamaru quietly protests, unable to bring himself to look at either of them.

"And now we are adults. You only became valuable when she realized she could take from you and even then, that wasn't enough. Are any of us enough for Ino? She didn't even want to have dinner with me. You told me so. The last human conversation I've had with her was at the memorial. You know how long that is between then and now? I wasn't good enough for a thirty-minute meal?" Choji rises from the metal chair.

"So I'm not capable of change?" Ino looks at him directly.

Choji looks from her to the surrounding boxes, the displaced plastic bags, "I never said that."

Shikamaru's stomach fills with butterflies. The kind of fluttering you get after narrowly escaping an explosion.

"Then I'm sorry for causing you to feel that deeply." She doesn't hesitate.

Choji nods his head three times, tightening his fist on the potato chip bag.

And they collapse into a long pause. Not a silence. Silence tells of absence and they are all very present.

"I'll be by tomorrow, Shikamaru. Y'all can have your quality time." Choji manages to say without bitterness. He states it as if it were a necessary fact–that they needed quality time in order for the rest of the day to carry on without chaos. He thinks, it's only appropriate that he remove himself, since he has been excluded from their relationship from the very beginning.

Shikamaru moves to stop him but Choji holds to his word. He always has and doesn't let whatever Shikamaru might say reel him back in.

"I didn't know he felt that way." Ino says two minutes after Choji closes the door.

Shikamaru stands beside her, reaching to place a hand on her shoulder but deciding against it. In one confused motion he drops his hand back at his side.

"Did you know?" she asks him.

"I did, but I never figured that you'd care."

The statement hurts her because she knows it's not a lie. She hadn't cared before. In the process of neglecting her sadness, she neglected everyone else.

"Please don't cry anymore, Ino. My honesty isn't meant to hurt you." He takes the bag of snacks from her hand and sits it on top of a box.

"But somehow it always does."

"Then stop running from the truth and just own your mistakes." he says softly.

Ino tilts her head back to meet his eyes. He has that constipated look he gets whenever he is frustrated, but it doesn't make her laugh today or make her want to challenge him. Shikamaru stares back until he feels a rising sense of anticipation. His expression softens and he blushes like a small boy.

"Stop running. It's not..." He swallows then looks away, "It's not that hard."

She accepts this advice. Before her last tear can reach her chin, she tugs him into an innocent embrace, pressing her face into his chest, inhales then exhales the tension that made her head hurt. Shikamaru falters despite his intuition. He waits until his head becomes clear, forcing himself to better calculate the nature of her hug before he returns the gesture. He pulls her closer and she tightens her arms around his torso.

It takes a moment for him to relax. He moves his hand from the small of her back and feels the clasp of her bra under the fabric of her shirt. His whole body responds like a man still in love.

"Let's go eat." he mutters.

"All we do is eat." Well... _all they did was eat_.

"Yes, but its universal knowledge that food makes you happier. It's the safest means of  having fun."

"Not exactly. You can still choke on a chicken bone. Worse, go into anaphylactic shock." Muffled voice, her lips move against his chest.

"Ino..."

"Don't you need to finish moving?"

"It can wait."

"Can it really?" She slightly pulls away.

"It can wait," he says again.

Ino recognizes the funny glint in his eyes and remembers the first time ever noticing it.

"Only if you pay for it since it isn't my idea." She doesn't smile. Her heart threatens to punch out of her chest.

"I always pay." Every single time.

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They've been here before. More than once. In a solitude that happens as often as an eclipse. They could never purposely replicate the aura. It just happens to be and is and will be.

Contemplating if she should finish the bowl or leave half, Ino pokes at the ramen with her chopsticks. This time it's not her lack of an appetite. It's everything in the universe that has conspired to work against and for her. Shikamaru eats just as slowly, watching her from his peripheral.

"Why is it always ramen?" Ino takes a swig of sake.

"Because ramen is cheap." He burps.

"So I'm a cheap date now, huh?"

"This isn't a date."

Ino falls silent, shovels ramen into her mouth and drinks more of her sake. Her lips spread into a frown because the saltiness doesn't mix well with the alcohol. Hell erupts in her stomach.

"No. This isn't a date." She nods.

Shikamaru clears his throat. There isn't anything for them to talk about–nothing worth mentioning. He, at least, has already said everything he felt she needed to know, so he decides on an, "Are you ok?"

Ino slurps a noodle, reaching to wipe saliva from her chin. Her brows pinch together.

"Am I ok?"

"Yes. That's what I asked."

Ino sets down her chopsticks, squints at him. Shikamaru finishes his cup of sake.

"No. I'm not."

"What's wrong?"

"You're doing that thing, Shikamaru." And she turns her head away from him.

"What thing?"

"You ask questions you already know the answers to."

He quirks a brow but turns to order another drink. In the time they spend not speaking, he thinks hard.

"I can assume what is wrong, but one can never know with you."

"Apparently I'm not that complex." Ino shoves the bowl away.

"Yea, but you're also not transparent." Which is something he's underestimated about her. Sometimes she's as easy as reading a book and the next moment it's like finding a constellation.

Time unfolds outside of their tight bubble. Shikamaru starts another glass and Ino says, to pacify the tension that's always been there, "Ramen and alcohol. A recipe for disaster."

"And diarrhea." Shikamaru quips, realizing that at some point they'd gotten much closer than either had anticipated. Ino's shampoo wafts whenever she turns to scan their surroundings. It's the shampoo they shared for that pocket of time they 'lived' together.

"You would know." She presses her fingers against her chin.

"Hm."

"You know everything."

"Not everything." Shikamaru looks down at his empty bowl, scratches behind his ear with a finger.

"Yea-huh, you do. You always have." Ino focuses on his tanned knuckles. Some of his skin has dried and begun to peel.

"I'm still unsure if you've ever truly acknowledged just how much I care about you." It was meant to stay a private thought, but he proceeds to drink as if he had intended to say it. Shikamaru gazes at her and to his surprise, she doesn't shy away from his honesty. She holds his stare.

Ino licks away the remaining saltiness of her lips. All of her turns pink.

"How much do you?" It's a stupid question but maybe if he could start from the beginning then they could possibly meet at the finish line together.

"So have we hit an impasse?" His slow blinks tantalize her. In an attempt to cool down her anxiety, she straightens her spine in the backless stool, accidentally brushing their knees together.

"Have we?" Her voice breaks.

"It's up to you. It always has been, Ino."

The immature part of herself hesitates. Shikamaru is no one to be scared of. Now, she understands that it's her own shadow she fears. Is she more like her father or mother? Can she be whole in the absence of one?

"You just like to force me to say what you already know." Ino lowers her voice.

"I wouldn't ask if I knew and if I knew I probably wouldn't be sitting here waiting for a different answer." The silly thing about it is, Shikamaru thought he had stopped wanting an answer but...

Ino has always been the type to receive epiphanies like a ton of bricks falling from the sky.

"Do you care about me?" He gives her no time to breathe.

"I always have." It's that easy.

"Really?" He sits on the edge of his seat, not smiling but not cold. "Because it hasn't felt like it."

"In different stages, yes." She tries to remember the exact point in time it became blurry enough for them to get _here_. Was it inevitable? If by the will of some god, she were given the chance to convince her twelve-year-old self, would she be able to?

"You hurt me, Ino." The statement stands in the present.

"I hurt everyone apparently. Even myself." She stares at her half-eaten bowl.

" _Fucking hell_." Shikamaru's voice rumbles as he exhales. He shovels more ramen into his mouth. "Different stages, yea?"

"I'm being honest."

"Yea. I know you are and I just sound like an old stray dog stuck in the rain." He sets down his chopsticks and massages the bridge of his nose.

"No, you don't." Ino looks at him. She reaches out to fold her soft hand over his calloused fingers. Time ebbs forward and she sees Shikamaru clearly for the first time. Every version of him. Shikamaru searches her face long enough to feel everything again.

Once he is sure that it is ok to feel safe, he gives himself back to her and Ino leans in to kiss him with all of her body. Sliding to the edge of her seat, she closes the gap between them and he catches her with an arm.

"You're a better kisser than Sai." She pecks his cupid's bow.

"That's not funny." His says dizzily, like it shouldn't have happened, but it did and the butterflies in his stomach make him incapable of rejecting her.

"But it's true." She kisses him again with more passion.

"We're in public, Ino."

The thought of pulling away becomes pure insanity.

"When has that ever mattered to you?"

And then it ceases to exist as an option.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are, again, not at the end of this story so I'm promising you guys that I won't ever mention the end ever again. In order for me to do right by the characters, there's no way I could do this story justice just ending it the way I had intended. After much brain storming with my beta, we both figured to let this story continue. Ino has a lot of growing to do still and Shikamaru needs room for forgiveness. So I've been working on this literally since this past December. Rewriting and deleting, wash, rinse, repeat. I was really wanting to find a way to end this but this can't be the end. So I'm just releasing this now. Sorry to keep everyone waiting for so long. I'm on tumblr under my pen name so if you would like to interact with me or pester me about updates feel free to. I need fire under my ass. I hope I redeemed myself by making this a nice long 30 pages.


	7. Blood

Shikamaru realizes that he has achieved peak adulthood as he finds his own boredom unbearable. The older he gets, the dirtier he wants his hands. Or perhaps the past few months have changed him. He's not yet unrecognizable to himself, simply he feels that difference like night and day.

He doesn't quite know how to broach his current predicament to Kakashi without sounding ungrateful, or whiny, or worst of all egotistical.

" _So_..." Kakashi slightly sings, knowingly in a way that's discomforting– as if he is still that child with a lot of basic questions.

Shikamaru clenches his jaws, dropping all traces of his perpetual coolness. He takes a deep breath through his nostrils.

"I feel stagnant." It might as well have taken all the wind out of him to say so.

"And whose fault is that?" Kakashi folds his fingers on his chest as he leans back in his big chair.

Shikamaru thinks of everything that has grown like moss on his soul. A pain crawls into his throat. He doesn't want to nod in agreement, so he presses his lips together, staring pointedly back at his superior.

"Honestly, Shikamaru, It's never too late to set bigger goals for yourself. Where do you see yourself in five years?" Kakashi doesn't move, acutely aware that his straightforwardness has threatened Shikamaru's newly acquired maturity. He doesn't shrink like a child but neither is he ready to dry-swallow the truth, even if he's been aware of his fault for some time now.

"I have no idea." Shikamaru responds tersely.

"Well, at least you've finished the first step towards progress. You've addressed the issue. Stagnancy." Kakashi's chair creaks as he fixes his posture.

Two minutes pass before either of them speak. A bird thumps against the glass window.

"It's easier to just keep yourself busy, but not everyone has been given the gift of limitless capability. It just boils down to how much you understand your worth." Kakashi props an elbow on the arm of his chair, and presses his cheek against his knuckles. All resilient and cool and unbothered, but still very great in presence.

"Sure." Shikamaru clams up.

"And to be honest I don't see a hunger in you, but you can't have an appetite for a thing you've never tasted."

"Yea."

" _Yea_. That's all you have to say, kid?" Kakashi's eyes widen.

"I'm absorbing your wisdom, sir." Shikamaru replies flatly.

Kakashi's brows wrinkle and he frowns with his stare.

"I get it. You can't understand desire when you're lost. I have common sense." Shikamaru loosens himself.

There's no reason to challenge him.

"Common sense is what you do have. You aren't completely hopeless since you're vocalizing your dissatisfaction, despite your inarticulacy." Kakashi sighs.

The same bird dives against the window again, with enough force to drive Shikamaru's attention away from Kakashi. He turns in his seat to observe the crack-free glass. Fingerprint-like smudges stain the surface. The sky is crowded with formless clouds.

"Have you considered Anbu?" Kakashi sits upright and brings himself closer to the desk.

Shikamaru faces him with a grimace. His mouth widening into a deep frown. "No."

"Why not? I think it's up to your speed."

"I'm not exactly partial to murdering for the sake of murdering."

"Whether you have a weak stomach or not isn't what separates Anbu from jounin," Kakashi says incredulously.

Shikamaru has no rebuttal. He scratches the back of his neck, sagging his shoulders. There's never been a moment when someone's judgment made him light headed.

"Why Anbu?"

"Because I have a job for you. I don't think anyone else is as capable and thorough as you. You rarely make mistakes."

"What you're saying is you think I'm good at taking orders."

"Better than most. And when you do make mistakes your cleanup is effortless." Kakashi points a finger at him.

"No." Shikamaru doesn't falter. A job means that shit isn't alright, and shit has been fine for a while. He doesn't believe he is fully capable of handling another shit storm. Jounin aren't in the dark for the most part, but he likes not being familiar with the back end of politics.

"I'm not asking for an answer right now. I just want you to think about it. I could be wrong, but like you, that's hardly ever the case."

"No."

"Think about it. I know where your head is. I've been there. Asuma isn't here. Neither is Shikaku, but we were raised to be shinobi. Killing is just as much as a chuunin's business as it is an Anbu operative's. Death is a constant visitor to the dinner table..."

"It's not about Asuma or my dad."

"It is. It's about everything you've experienced that has shaped your perspective. I don't think either of them would want you to stifle yourself over fear. If it's not fear then it's uncertainty. You're single with no family to come home to. It's the best time to take advantage of the skills you sleep on."

"You put it that way and it sounds fucking morbid."

"Everything we do is morbid." Kakashi states gravely and Shikamaru can't argue with him.

Realistically, he is not morally superior to Anbu. Their society as a whole isn't.

"I rest my case. I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want to." Kakashi stands and this concludes the conversation. Shikamaru doesn't rise immediately. He swims in his head.

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And the daze doesn't wear off an hour later. Shikamaru doesn't mingle with his peers after Kakashi's weekly summoning of the active shinobis. He silently melts away in a corner, redefining his earlier intentions. Sure, he was bored with what felt like, to him, menial tasks but isn't it a good thing that work hasn't been dirty in the past few years?

What exactly is he hungry for?

"Why do you look so dejected?" Naruto startles him. Typically nobody startles him. He steps out of the traffic of his headspace and blinks at Naruto, who holds two cans of ginger ale.

"Why are you staring so hard at me?" Shikamaru wasn't completely not himself.

"Don't flatter yourself. You're definitely not my type. You're way too ugly." Naruto shoves a can into Shikamaru's chest. Hinata isn't ugly. Far from it. Shikamaru takes the can but stares at it for a long while before popping it open.

"Is it Ino?" Whispering, Naruto looks to his left and right.

Naruto has been good about not mentioning Ino. Shikamaru sees it when he sweats that the curiosity is murdering him on the inside. The fact that he hasn't asked at all, until now, must mean that Hinata is a special and good influence. It could very well mean that his loyalty is with Sai.

"Not at all." Shikamaru gives him an ugly smug smile.

"Then what?"

"I must really look bothered."

"You do and it's making me uncomfortable." Naruto takes a huge gulp, his face contorting as he swallows.

Shikamaru scans the hallway, contemplating if he should mention it to anyone at all. Let alone Naruto.

"Can you keep a secret?" Shikamaru leans forward.

"Oh my god! Yeees! Absolutely!" Naruto's cheeks burn red and his blue eyes sparkle in amazement. "You have secrets, Shikamaru? I mean...two timing with Ino was a secret."

Shikamaru lowers his head, pursing his lips and sighing. He peels his back from the wall.

"Suddenly I've changed my mind." Shikamaru begins to walk away with one hand in his pocket.

"Oh c'mon!" Naruto hisses between his teeth and stomps after him. "I don't blame you! Obviously I'm spoken for and very very very faithful..."

" _Obviously_..." Shikamaru drawls.

"But I'd imagine Ino is insanely hard to say no to!" Naruto grossly slurps from the can.

"How perceptive of you, Naruto...She your type?" Shikamaru doesn't stop walking and Naruto doesn't stop following.

"She's everybody's type!"

"Not too ugly, yea?" Shikamaru takes his first sip of ginger ale.

"Definitely not. I'm married but women haven't stopped being beautiful!"

Shikamaru's ego causes him to hesitate, but what is one to do with an indigestible conundrum? It's pivotal moments in his life like this when he misses his father. So not only is the problem too fat to swallow, but he gets a pain in his throat that reaches his temples. His mouth starts to water.

When they've reached an unoccupied section of the hallway, Shikamaru stops at a window sill and Naruto clumsily stumbles beside him. Before speaking, Shikamaru sweeps his eyes down the echoing hall one last time. The dull ache of his temples becomes a mild migraine.

"Would you go through with Anbu recruitment?" Shikamaru doesn't exactly whisper but his voice is low. All the spirit in Naruto's face blanches. He lowers the ginger ale from his lips, losing that glow about him that people often mistake as callowness. Naruto doesn't break eye contact, but his fading smile reveals thoughtfulness.

"I mean...it's not exactly something I've thought about." Naruto's forehead crinkles as he lowers his chin.

"Yea. Me neither."

"Kakashi offered it to you...?" It's more a statement than a question. Naruto doesn't expect a direct answer. A stiff but affirmative nod suffices.

They share a brief moment of silence before Naruto straightens his neck, "What did you say?"

"No. Clearly." Shikamaru sits his can on the window sill.

"Why!?"

"What do you mean _why_? Is that something you'd wanna do to yourself?"

"Well...no, but Kakashi wouldn't ask you to do anything you're not capable of. The fact that he asked in and of itself is a compliment." Naruto folds his arms.

"I'm just not interested in becoming a glutton for punishment."

"Hell, how do you not exhaust yourself being so passive, Shikamaru?"

"I don't think not wanting to shorten your life expectancy is being passive."

"Sucks that you've realized too late that you just might be in the wrong profession...granted it's not like you had much of a choice." Naruto effortlessly crushes the empty can, unfolding his arms, observing the crushed aluminum, and it's folded yellow design.

Shikamaru loses the desire to finish his ginger ale. He tenses up as he muddles over the sentiment.

"You've always done the bare minimum, but somehow your bare minimum always sets the bar higher. I guess I just can't empathize with not wanting to be your absolute best self– can't relate." Naruto shakes his head and then scowls a bit. "Shikamaru, do you think you've just capped?"

"What do you mean?" Shikamaru is the one a little bereft of words this time.

"Is this..." Naruto gestures wildly at Shikamaru "...as good as it gets? How are we supposed to change the world together if this is your stopping point?"

There's a genuine intensity to Naruto's disbelief. At the moment, Shikamaru can't tell if it's a disgusted disbelief or a crushed belief in something more. He would hate to admit it, but Shikamaru hasn't given himself time to think that far. After the war, something stopped, but maybe nothing had ever started.

"I don't know." Is what he says to Naruto.

"Figure it the fuck out." And Naruto wouldn't hear any more of it even if Shikamaru had more to say.

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The day he decides to pay his respects to the dead is the day the sky chooses to be cloudy. The universe is somehow, _just has to be_ , keen to the small choices he has been making. From putting on his shoes to taking the long way to the cemetery versus the short one. It's a late summery grey humidness and his black T-shirt absorbs his sweat. Kakashi's proposal still sits in the back of his as if the mere suggestion had been a curse.

Though he immediately rejected the idea, the shiftlessness of his life has been devoured by the corporal change of his curiosity. As a boy, he could not have been convinced that he would reach a point in his life where this, who is now, would feel so drastically unhappy doing what felt like absolutely nothing. Temari had been right in her accusation before they called off the engagement. Shikamaru did not want anything extraordinary to become of his life. He couldn't understand why it bothered her then, but now it's a strong taste in his mouth that no amount of toothpaste can scrub off his tongue.

It's been a week and he's thought a lot about Anbu. The thought alone already subjects him to feeling isolated.

Ino is stiff beside him with armful of pink hydrangeas. Very present and warm. As silent as the sky before the storm. A whole person isn't enough nor is this stretch of land occupied by ghosts. They stand over Asuma's gravestone– not exactly speechless. For they both share hope that the universe allows the dead to hear thoughts.

"When was the last time you were here?" Shikamaru only speaks to break the unsettling quiet.

"Don't make me answer that." She sniffs.

"I'm not judging you for it." He sighs.

"I know you're not, Shikamaru."

"Isn't it kinda stupid that our entire lives we've been preparing to die– but we got no crash courses on grieving?" Shikamaru reads the date under Asuma's name over and over, as if it would change every time he blinked.

She turns her head to look at him, focusing on the shape of his nose. Instead of speaking, she brings the flowers closer to her chest.

"Survival is supposed to be the reward I guess." He continues.

"Death isn't exactly punishment." She clears her throat.

He stops staring at the imaginary point on Asuma's headstone, takes a good look at her– a really long look that sends him many years back. Ino travels in time with him, more a victim than a passenger to his broken-heartedness. It materializes so clearly for her but she feels a vicious stab of guilt.

"Thank you for coming." His eyes are glassy. She's not only seen this look before, but has been the direct cause of it many times. It's only different today because the sky doesn't cast any shadows. There's no shimmer, just a poignant dullness that's somehow harder to stomach.

"Don't thank me." Ino weakly protests.

He massages the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes.

There isn't more that needs to be said. Any form of politeness is futile. The crazy thing about death is when much time has gone by, it becomes more of a disappointing fact than it is a strong invasive presence. Like forgetting to shut the stove off or misplacing a spare set of keys. Important but not exactly intrusive. At least for the majority of the time after many, many years. Ino bends down to rest a few hydrangeas on Asuma's headstone.

"Dad next?" Shikamaru drops his hand to his side, exhaling as if he had just thrown ten punches in the air.

Ino gives him a slight over the shoulder nod.

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Happiness cannot be quantified. He could find it for a month, but he always ends up realizing that he's pretending. A layer to what he's been ignoring under the surface.

Ino pours him a glass of lemonade. Not even the most harmless act of intimacy made him feel better. He supposes he had used it all up along the way.

Life lesson number three hundred and fifty-six: It is, in fact, possible to squander away contentment.

Were things ever looking up though? He can't recall.

"You're quiet." Ino states the obvious.

"When do I ever have a lot to say?" He's never been much of a talker.

"It's not the _'I have nothing to say'_ type of quiet." She sits the lemonade in front of him. He doesn't argue with her, because he's never been one to lie about his feelings. However, this time, what he is feeling is too personal for anyone to compartmentalize for him.

It's a touch of sadness tangled up in this need to jump out of his skin. There's not a word for suicidal without the desire to die. It's not exactly self sabotage either.

"I'm fine. It's just a different kind of day." He takes the glass. Ino doesn't take her eyes off of Shikamaru. She sits across from him at her tiny table.

A touch of lightning zips across the sky. Thunder follows shortly after. As her thoughts chase the thunder, she watches him finish the lemonade. Ten minutes have gone by, but she can't come up with anything– and really what right did she have to say anything at all?

He sits the glass down with a quiet thump. Licking the corners of his mouth, he folds his arms across his chest, sinks a little lower in the seat.

"I feel incomplete. I think I've felt this way for a long time." His knees brush against hers.

"Why do you think that?" Ino almost jumps from her seat with anticipation. _Maybe she won't have to blame herself._

"There's only so much growth you experience sorta skirting by? Does it make sense?"

"You haven't been _'skirting by'_ though, Shikamaru."

"I think about how dad is dead. I've been engaged once, I've capped at jonin. Before now and in between I have nothing to show for 'progress'. I couldn't even be engaged right. I think dad would be more disappointed than mom."

"Being engaged is not measure of success. You've never showed an interest in anything outside of jonin anyway." Ino grimaces at the thought of anyone being with Shikamaru other than herself.

"Ino, that's not the point."

"Other than being sad, what is your point?"

He doesn't want to articulate himself, he'd much rather just feel it.

"I have somewhere I need to be. Thank you for spending time with me." He says mechanically. It startles a strange hotness at the back of her mouth. Completely shattering her stoicism, it takes a lot not to cry on impact.

Shikamaru gets up to leave. Ino rises and follows him to her door. She can't beat the vulnerability out of him. Once he's made up his mind, he's uncompromising. And she most definitely is not his girlfriend and has never been a fiancé.

The goodbye is an even colder exchange. She doesn't even get a hug.

After he's gone, her apartment has never felt colder.

Ino walks back to the table to put his glass in the sink, but when her fingers touch where his mouth had been, her legs freeze.

She remembers buying a second chair specifically for him. It doesn't match the table nor the other chair. It's his specific spot in her home.

It thunders but rain never falls. The storm passes over.

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Where the bird had flown into the window, the smudge remains. It occurs to Shikamaru, days later, that it could've broken it's neck and died in the brambles below the Hokage's office.

"I'll do it." Shikamaru doesn't take a seat.

"I knew you would." Kakashi stares back at him brightly.

"I have nothing else better to do."

"We won't allow that kind of speech. It's ok to acknowledge that you're tired of not challenging yourself. Later you will find it empowering. Being blunt is not the same as being honest."

Kakashi walks from around his desk.

Shikamaru doesn't argue with him. He's irritated by the simplicity of Kakashi's logic. The corner of his mouth twitches.

"When can I start?"

"Eight weeks." Kakashi sifts through his personal file cabinet.

"Eight weeks!?"

"If I'm being honest, eight weeks isn't long enough for the required training."

"Why eight whole weeks?" Shikamaru falls into the soft chair. The cushions sigh under him. His anxiety strengthens.

"Now don't go spitting a million questions at me. Training is eight weeks and there's a possibility that you'll give up in the middle of it. I _don't_ think you will, but...I can't ignore the many outcomes. There's still a lot I can't disclose to you." Kakashi pulls a folder, keeping his back turned as he flips through its contents.

"I was raised to be a murder machine and I've still got more training..." Shikamaru laughs in disbelief. "There's only so many ways you can mangle a body, Kakashi. Blood is blood. Sometimes it gets everywhere."

Kakashi slightly turns to glance at him. "You know an awful damn lot of nothing, Shikamaru. I'm genuinely surprised."

Shikamaru closes his mouth. Kakashi doesn't engage him for a moment. After slipping the folder back into the file cabinet, Kakashi returns to his desk empty handed.

Instead of sitting down, he chooses to stand, pressing his knuckles against the surface. The softness of his usual expression fades. He gives Shikamaru a solemn look, narrowing his eyes.

"For eight weeks you won't have any agency over yourself. Don't make important commitments after today. When you're summoned, always be punctual. You will understand why time will be significant to your proctors, who will eventually become your peers." Kakashi sits on that note.

"I'm an adult." Shikamaru frowns.

"Yes you are. I like that you're already overestimating yourself. Makes me feel good." Kakashi's broad smile wrinkles the corners of his eyes. "Be back in my office in two days."

Two days is an easy wait.

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_Or so he thought._

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A lot can be accomplished in two days. In the middle of hanging his laundry on a clothesline, the strong smell of fabric softener awakens something inside of Shikamaru. He recalls a childhood memory as if it had happened the day before yesterday.

The first time he had ever failed at anything– no matter how diligently he had watered his plant, it never grew. Reliving it, it's ridiculous that such a trivial moment had traumatized him. The precursor to experiencing loss, failure came first, and then things became pointless.

Things seemed to always go wrong whenever he _tries_.

It took two days to deconstruct years.

Who would've thought that out of all the messy people in his life, that Shikamaru Nara would be the one with 'letting go' issues. As he attempts to hook a sheet in a clothes pin, the wind causes it to billow around his face. Maybe it's genetic, inherited from his mother who refuses to buy a dryer.

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Sakura's apartment is a crammed shoebox. Purposefully modest, its size is meaningful. Sakura had somehow figured out how to ascend the flesh. She doesn't desire materials without sentiment. Clearly, one who doesn't mindlessly consume doesn't demand much from anyone else. Ino had always written it off as Sakura not understanding her self-worth, but that is nowhere near the truth, despite how much Ino wanted that to be the case.

"Where do you see yourself five years from now?" Sakura shuts a window with a hard thud.

"If I'm honest, will you judge me?" Ino feeds Sakura's goldfish.

There's a brief pause as Sakura wanders from the window into her bathroom.

"No? I'm not in any place to judge anyone, Ino." Sakura's voice echoes.

"I always say that when I'm about to judge."

Sakura slams a drawer closed and makes a small squeak. "Good thing we aren't one in the same, yea?"

The last streaks of sunlight cut through the mini blinds. With a plastic neon green cup, Ino waters Sakura's neglected plant.

"I just want to be happy." Ino answers after a while of staring down into the potted soil, until the texture regained a moisturized grittiness.

"Well– how do you measure your happiness?"

That answer used to be easy, but she hadn't given herself space to really undress it all. Sometimes, it hits her like a pungent smell, but more often than not, something else replaces her anxiety.

"Is it bad that I don't have an answer?"

Sakura leans outside of her bathroom, tendrils of bright hair fall around one side of her face.

"No," she replies with a smile, "sometimes it's more like a chase."

Leaning against the window, Ino smiles at the sentiment.

"You're so positive." She always has been.

"What's the other option? Being dead on the inside?" Sakura hums and drops something hard but tiny into the bowl of her sink. Then chaos erupts and the sound of bottles and jewelry tumbles around.

Ino anchors her attention out onto the darkening pavement. She's never considered chasing happiness. She's always assumed it's just supposed to happen. A street lamp flickers but the bulb pops into tiny sparkles of glass. _Like that!_ An instant explosion of heat that startles her soul straight from her body.

"What if it's too late and I'm dead on the inside?" Ino inhales the evening air, takes it all in her chest.

"You should volunteer! Help me do medic type stuff."

"I don't think I can handle people bleeding from every orifice as a hobby."

"When you witness other people going through rough times, it makes you wonder why you ever spent time sweating the things you can't control."

Though she isn't entirely partial to the idea, she can see herself beside Sakura. Unlearning and relearning.

"Hell, Sakura..."

"What?"

"That's not a bad idea...but my mom." Her mom has never really needed her emotional support. Sakura shuts off the light in her bathroom and closes the door behind her.

"Your mom is fine. Damaged, but fine. We all are."

It could be much worse.

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Ino always opens the shop. It gives her enough time to enjoy the mushiness of her early morning brain. Nothing is cumbersome when you're barely awake. Her body just moves on its own. Sakura's offer is even brighter the next day. It would force her muscles to remember new things, instead of how to properly hold a broom against a dustpan.

"I'm dead on the inside." She mutters to herself as she empties the dustpan into a bin.

She experiences the sound of her rustling about outside of herself.

"When did I become so boring?"

Ino rolls up the blinds and the hot sunlight feels like a second warm shower to start the day. Her eyes hurt, but in a good way that makes her feel less like a vessel. All of her is there and not as scattered as she fears it has been. At least for the moment.

When her vision rights itself against the sunrise, she focuses on a very familiar silhouette.

Shikamaru stands on the other side of the window very awake. The way the sun glows around his form, it looks like he's come back from a magical death.

They gape at each other. He mostly looks perplexed, liked he's forgotten why he had come or if he shouldn't have. Shikamaru rarely expresses a distinct emotion. After a minute he gestures for her to open the door with a _fuck-it-all_ grimace.

"What are you doing up this early!?" She lets him in.

"Why are you so loud this early?" He retorts flatly, rubbing his face.

Ino slams the door with a fake air of trepidation. "You stormed off and didn't apologize."

"I was in a bad mood."

"You're always in a bad mood." It occurs to Ino that there isn't a cause for an apology. Instead of falling for the trap she had accidentally set, Shikamaru doesn't 'bicker' back. He only sighs, stretching his arms with wide yawn.

"Can I be completely transparent with you?" He asks, _but when is he not transparent_?

"So now you wanna have a heart to heart. What if I don't feel like talking today?" She locks the door.

"It's nothing heavy." He stands beside the new rack of greeting cards her mother had ordered a month ago.

"Good 'cause I'm running on an empty stomach." Orange juice and toothpaste don't count.

Shikamaru either has the power to make her whole body feel like nothing but air on the inside or can make her so solid, her heart thumps as if it's buried an unfathomable amount of feet beneath the ground– and not inside her ribcage underneath all her muscle.

"If someone gave you the opportunity to alter your life right now, would you do it?" He covers his mouth with a hand as he chews the inside of his jaw.

Ino gives him a pinched frown, "What's the consequence?"

"That's the catch. You don't know the consequences."

"Are you not already happy?"

He puffs his cheeks, breathing between his fingers. Shikamaru rolls his eyes hard enough to give himself a headache.

"I'm not gonna answer that." He rubs his face.

"You don't gotta answer it. Only mildly miserable people want to alter their lives." She would know.

"I never said I wanted to alter my life. I simply asked you for an unbiased opinion, Ino."

"Whatever it is then do it, but if a part of you isn't broken then why go off fixing it...or 'altering' it?" She air quotes with her fingers, sticking out her bottom lip. "What did Choji say? Did you ask him?"

"But I am broken, Ino," he says with a lot of defeat.

His shoulders sag. The amount of times he says her name is always different. Each time conveys a certain emotion. Not clearly, but undeniably evident to her ears. It's something only she can recognize– magnifies how particular they are when it comes to each other.

He stops looking like the man she has swapped and mingled body fluids with. Sex not only complicated dynamics but deformed them. Intimacy added a grosser layer.

Shikamaru looks like who he had been before they had ruined whatever normalcy they had in their interactions. The wholesomeness of sharing ramen, politely conversing about the weather under a streetlight, asking her where she had been all this time– way before their teeth pierced each other's skin.

"Then fix yourself" is what she says with a lot of pain, but necessary sternness she'd learn from her mother.

"That's funny coming from you."

"What's funny is that you asked me of all people." She walks past him, angry that he had lied about the conversation not being heavy, but it was like dry-swallowing an entire bottle of fat pills.

"I asked you because you're the only person in my life who isn't..." He follows her behind the counter.

"Isn't what!?" She kneels beside two boxes, shuffling them around mindlessly until she finds the box cutter she had misplaced the other day. _You always find things when you're not searching for them_.

"You're the only person in my life who is everything but also nothing." It makes more sense in his head.

"What does that even mean!?" She stabs the blade into the box and slits the tape in half.

"One moment you're one thing, then next, you can easily decide not to be that thing anymore. I don't know. I sound dumb." He leans against the counter and hides his face in the palms of his hands.

"You're not dumb...You're other things but definitely not that. I'm fickle, that's not something to aspire to." She huffs.

"I'd much rather be fickle than always so sure of myself. Pride can make you look stupid."

Ino rises, tossing the dull box cutter on the countertop. She folds her arms. "Then you wouldn't be you and we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't have gone and done a lot of other things that led up to now. That's more important than you feeling sorry for yourself for no reason."

Shikamaru swallows and his ears no longer feel like there's cotton inside of his head. Then he bites his bottom lip, his chin wrinkling.

"I just wanna be different. Shut myself off, reboot, start over." His eyes never stray from Ino's engulfing bright stare.

"There's nothing stopping you."

"Then right now this is just me fessing up to not being perfect...I guess."

"No one has ever told you that you had to be, Shika. And if that's _seriously_ how you feel then we've all failed you."

And that statement emancipates him. He never knew he needed to hear it. _Or maybe he has_ , but it was never a clear necessity.

"How many graves did you have to rob to get all this wisdom?" He smiles at her.

"Not one." She shakes her head with a laugh.

"The day you start making sense means something dark is afoot."

"Don't you have somewhere to be? You always come and go as soon as I start enjoying your company." Ino spins her hair into a tangled bun, squinting down at a smudge on the floor, pretending to not feel _liquidy_. Her tone drops three notches.

"I do." Shikamaru observes the short strands of hair at the nape of her neck.

Unbeknownst to one another, they have a strong feeling that it would be a long time before they spoke so candidly again. Shikamaru wants to express this feeling but it's damning if he does. It's like wishing for the worst to come.

Ino smoothens her top, turning her head, he notes the way the tendon in her neck shifts under her skin as she turns her head away from him.

 _I love you_ – if he's ever thought it before, it wasn't so loud inside of himself the last time.

"Then you better hurry up." She snatches open a drawer and fishes out her apron.

Instead of leaving it all alone, he doesn't allow her to unfold the apron. He fills up the small space that separates them. He takes her in a strong embrace. It startles her at first but eventually her limbs turn into silly putty, molding herself around the command of his body.

"It's too early for this." She mumbles softly against the damp skin of his neck. The taste of his body wash gets in her mouth.

He wants to explain to her the depth of his feelings though he fears it won't change anything. It can't fix the time he spent ignoring that the higher power had always intended for them to be together. Probably not an infinite amount, but _definite._ Expressing how in love he is won't erase the pain that's bled into other areas of his being.

If she had enough power to contribute to this spiraling sense of desperation, then it's best to keep it to himself. It's not like it's going anywhere any time soon and it hasn't grown too big for him to carry around with the rest of his turmoil.

He's been here before. All over again.

"I think I want to be different too." Ino tilts her head back to get a better look at him.

Shikamaru moves his hands from her back to sprawl his fingers around the sides of her face.

"You can't be too different. You're head is still too big for your body."

"And you're still kinda ugly. A bit less ugly but ugly nevertheless." Her inflection is watery. She smiles under the pressure of his thumbs.

Ino is beautiful because no one can hold her for too long. She's awful because she's unaware that it's not because no one has enough room to contain her– she just loves the idea of absolute free-will. Through the lens of diabolical determination for incompleteness. Coming full circle wouldn't leave room for the 'what if' that could save her from an invisible mistake. This is how Shikamaru perceives her.

They don't have a definition for what they are anymore.

"You've got an obligation, right?" She mutters.

Shikamaru catapults himself into the vibrant blue of her gaze. The kiss he gives her is different than the ones that came before. It doesn't match the many she has instigated either.

It's not wet. She retains her breath. There's only the softness of their lips locked. Without romance but not lacking in feeling. She relaxes into the tenderness and wraps her arms around his torso.

At the very moment they peel their lips away, the front door clicks but they are deafened by a nauseating bitter sweetness.

"I'll see you later." Shikamaru releases her.

"How late is later?" Ino's arms loosen but she's not ready to let him go.

The shop door swings open, the wind-chimes are enough to break apart the thickness of their moment soon swallowed up into the past- a thing that happened a few minutes ago but felt like a bygone forever-ago.

"Later." He manages to squeeze out of his throat. _No commitments_. And he breaks away from her.

Mrs. Yamanaka witnesses the tail end of the clearly obvious. She gawks at them with misty-eyed curiosity.

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Running away can be good for the soul. Running is good for learning how to breathe.

"You won't be receiving any intelligence during your training," Kakashi steps into the elevator behind Shikamaru, "so you can always back out if you can't handle it."

"No offense, sir, but I think I've been through the worst. A man who is ready to die learns to never be surprised by the worst." Shikamaru can't exactly remember if he heard that from Choza or Asuma.

The absolute worst was losing his father.

"Hm." Kakashi breathes and his mask sinks into his nostrils. "Are you really prepared to die?"

"It's a symptom of what we've been brought up doing, no?" The doors shut and the button panel lights up.

"I think you're conflating preparedness with emotional vacancy. The latter you don't have. No man with a fruitful life just accepts dying in the face of death." Kakashi folds his arms in his sleeves. The bell pings each passing floor.

Shikamaru doesn't have a rebuttal. He sticks out his bottom lip and rolls his eyes. There isn't exactly tension cramming the elevator. The air is just stuffy with expectations. He is doubtful but he would never admit it to the Hokage.

"Keep this in mind..." Kakashi extends an index finger into the air then gently taps it against the side of his head, " This is a choice. Not an order. No one will keep you from bailing."

They finally reach the last floor and the doors slide open with a depressed sigh. When Shikamaru doesn't readily step from the elevator, Kakashi presses the button that stalls the doors from closing.

"How many people fail?" Shikamaru takes a deep breath.

"One out of every four."

"That doesn't make me feel any better."

"I was under the assumption that you were fine, Shikamaru."

With that, Shikamaru steps out of the elevator with his fists shoved deep in his pockets, nails painfully digging into his palms.

"I am fine." He shakes his head.

"Alright then. The last door on your left it is then."

Kakashi releases the button and the doors quietly shut, possibly ending the last real conversation he will have in a long time. He stares down the pristine white hallways. It's desolate enough that his own thoughts echo down the corridor.

He puts one foot forward, after the last step he would obtain a level of privacy unnatural to typical humans. This is what his life has been leading up to, _he supposes_. He wants to believe that this won't alter him too much. There should be more than enough of him to take back home to his mother. Standing outside of the door, he curses himself for thinking so morbidly.

He licks his lips with a dry tongue, sliding one hand from his pocket. The skin between his fingers is cracked. The unforeseeable state of his future is more terrifying than eight weeks of not entirely belonging to himself.

And it's not like he had much of a choice in the beginning anyway.

He turns the knob but, of course, the door is locked, but he's not waiting for long. The lock clicks and whoever stands on the other side cracks it open without a greeting.

Shikamaru stares at the slightly parted door. This is his choice, but choices often leave lifelong consequences. Massaging his chest with a hand, he nudges the door open with his foot.

On the other side, the light is much brighter. A clean fluorescent glow bleaches the walls, the floor. The tiles extend outside of the room, but inside the humming light fixtures give it a glassy shimmer. Like a morgue that's been thoroughly cleaned.

Sai sits at a table in the middle of the room, he rises with a blank expression, setting a brightly colored paperback face down. Two glasses and a pitcher are the only semblance of decoration.

Many questions turn over in Shikamaru's head but they won't be answered. He is to remain in the dark until he has completed the eight weeks.

"I have answers." Sai's voice surprises him, like piercing a dream.

"I thought..."

"Just take a seat." Sai kicks the metal chair around with his ankle, then scoots it on the opposite side of the table. "Sit," he says with a little more command.

Shikamaru does what he is told, readily, ill-prepared all the same, ill-equipped mentally for what could transpire in the next ten minutes. Sai props himself of the edge of the table, folding his arms.

People who are unreadable have always made Shikamaru uncomfortable. Sai's fettered attitude never sat well. He wonders how Ino ever managed to coexist with such iciness.

He knows he shouldn't judge Sai so cruelly. It might not be iciness at the surface. Just well sorted logic. Emotions and logic rarely mix well together.

"Kakashi thought it would be appropriate for me to be your proctor." Sai's eyes don't reflect the light. The darkness of his stare engulfs Shikamaru's overworked ability to think.

"I thought you didn't miss this kind of work." Shikamaru recalls Naruto saying so.

"Times have changed," Sai says prophetically. "I never missed it. It's never been an identity. Identity requires emotional labor."

Sai extends an arm across the table for the pitcher of water and begins to pour Shikamaru a glass.

"But...I'm _glad_ to be here." Sai's brows wrinkle together as he thinks of something. Even with a clear expression, Shikamaru can't figure what would cause him to ponder so.

"Glad. Yea. That's the word I want to use." He hands Shikamaru the glass.

"You're passive?" Shikamaru receives it, perplexed by the generous gesture. The back of his ears grow hot thinking about the obviousness of his anxiety.

"Passive. Maybe." Sai pushes himself from the table and walks around to where the chair had once been.

A cold moment of silence follows after. Shikamaru's sweaty hands slip around the glass as he throws his head back, downing it like it's air.

"How is Ino?" Sai doesn't blink.

"More or less the same." Shikamaru isn't startled by the question. The normal social barriers between them had not only been destroyed before hand but have no place now, considering that they are on the path of becoming equals.

"Do you still love her?"

"In the friendliest way possible." Shikamaru wipes his lips with the back of his hand.

Since the moment he had stepped inside, Sai has watched Shikamaru with a hawkish attentiveness. It breaks briefly when he looks down at his hand, drumming his fingers. A quirk that makes him more human than robotic.

"So tell me about yourself, Shikamaru Nara. What do you plan to personally achieve through all this?" Sai asks with a rare show of emotional perceptiveness. "How do we share the same friends but lack a relationship?"

A tiny thump of pain starts at the back of Shikamaru's neck. He raises a hand to rub the spot, wincing.

"Would I lose credibility if I admitted to being a victim of my whims?" Shikamaru manages a small laugh.

"No." Sai doesn't laugh with him.

"Then...I have no real answer. I'm betting I won't have one until the very end." Shikamaru clears his throat.

"That's a good thing. It means you won't expect too much of yourself. When you fail, your disappointment will have less of an effect on your mental."

"You already think I'm gonna fail?" Shikamaru's brows wrinkle. The warm pain trickles down his spine, his head feels heavy on his neck.

"Are you naive enough to think you will always succeed?" Sai's expression doesn't change. It's not an insult, Shikamaru reminds himself. An insult necessitates cruel intent. He can't respond. This could be his very first test. There's a possibility that this conversation has a script with a predetermined answer: 1, 2, or 3.

Shikamaru shifts in his chair, unable to feel his back side. The room is so white that he doubts his blurring vision. The only color to latch onto is Sai, but Sai's form doesn't warp. He's too close.

"Failure builds character," Sai says after a while.

"I don't fail often."

"How old are you?"

"23." Shikamaru hunches forward, propping his elbows on the table. Suddenly he breaks into a cold sweat. The spaces wear heat collects sting; the crook in his arm, his pits, the back of his legs, where the skin folds. Even the corners of his nose.

"You've got time. Statistically forty more years." Sai's tone stays the same.

They are quiet, save for Shikamaru's breathing. The table shakes as Sai pushes himself upright. His footsteps are a hard pounding outside of Shikamaru's foggy consciousness. Sai says something but it's a mutter lost in the very bright white.

A few minutes pass and Sai nudges Shikamaru with another glass.

"Do you need another glass?" His voice sounds like he's on the opposite end of a tunnel. The lights around his head faintly shadowing his pale features.

Shikamaru stares at the warbling shape of the glass– it makes complete sense then.

Forty more years isn't a long time, but he realizes he won't have to wait at all. It will only take a few more seconds and that excess of forty years will drop off like dead weight.

At this point, he only knows it is Sai before him because it is a fact. Not because he can properly access his bone structure or the gait of his walk. Shikamaru buries his head in the crook of his arm, succumbing to the muscle melting migraine.

Sai kneels beside him...and mutters something. It's not clear, Sai could be screaming at him and he wouldn't have the senses to know.

Shikamaru fails a test for the first time. Accidentally. That's the last thought he has before the glistening white turns purple to black.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So here is my excuse as to why its been so long. I've been without a proper working laptop for a while. I just bought myself a new one. My old laptop would not work unless the battery was hooked up to the charger and it would repeatedly shut off. I couldn't work like that so I had to put writing on a hold. Also, I've been in the middle of writing an original story. I feel weird saying 'I'm writing a book'. It doesn't feel like that to me right now, but all of your comments have sort of inspired me to create my own fiction. Maybe one day I will finish it and attempt to get it published.
> 
> I'm also in a transitioning period in my life. I finally have a good paying full-time job that takes up all my time. By the time I get off, I just wanna drink myself to sleep, but it isn't emotionally commanding so it doesn't take away from my creative drive. Even when my laptop stopped turning on, up until that moment I was still working on this. Like always. Sometimes a sentence a day or a sentence an hour. I have no plans on abandoning my baby, so no worries for those who expressed concern. I just take a while to update.
> 
> I don't have a Tumblr anymore for personal reasons.
> 
> Thank you guys for being so patient and awesome. Even if its been a while, leave your reviews. It lights a fire under my ass and holds me accountable.


	8. Vitamin

" _ **...time was not passing...it was turning in a circle..." ~**_ **Gabriel García Márquez**

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"Shikamaru Nara."

He had failed his first test. This is the first thought that he has regaining consciousness.

If he were to be asked what it's like to break a winning streak, he'd say— _liberating._

"Age, twenty three. Height...one hundred seventy six centimeters..." Sai's voice is accompanied by a sharp click of a pen cap.

If Shikamaru's mouth weren't dry, he would've laughed. Instead, he coughs so hard, it's like trying to upchuck razor blades hung in his throat. His entire body aches. It hurts to swallow his spit.

They are still in the white room, or _in a_ white room if not the same one.

"Hm...you have a birthday next week." Sai flips through a yellow folder. He sets the pen down. "The first day of fall. I bet your mom thinks you're close to a special blessing."

Shikamaru picks the crust from his eye. Both of his arms are bandaged with gauze, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Clearly, he had been stuck with needles.

"All moms are supposed to feel that way." It's even painful to talk. The sound of his own croaky voice causes him to wince.

"I wouldn't know." Sai pulls out a piece of paper and places it face down on the table.

The brightness of the room begins to look less like a puddle reflecting light, Sai's figure no longer an abstract shape, but hardening into a solid form. Like always, he's free of any expression. A pause in conversation, _if that's what the exchange could be called_ , goes on for what feel like thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes of Sai licking the tips of his fingers as he flips down another page. Thirty minutes of the scratchy sound the ball of a pen makes against thick paper.

Thirty minutes of Shikamaru enduring a full bladder. He sits up to stretch but two heavy hands rest on his shoulders. They don't force him down—the incentive to move just dies quickly.

"I can't fucking pee?" Shikamaru looks up at the shinobi in a bird mask.

"Of course you can." Sai pulls a clear plastic cup from seemingly nowhere and tips it to roll across the table. It lands on the floor instead of Shikamaru's lap.

"All your blood work came back fine." Sai finally closes the folder.

"How long have I been out?"

Sai doesn't respond. He rests his elbows on the table, laces his fingers together and rests his chin on his knuckles. Looking ahead but nowhere in particular. He is thinking.

"Did I need to be drugged for a physical exam?" Shikamaru struggles to find his voice.

"No, but that was your fault. You broke an important rule. Never trust a familiar face no matter how many times it has smiled at you or asked you about your day." Sai points an accusing finger at him.

Shikamaru can't recall ever seeing Sai smile. He's certain he isn't capable of it.

"How long have I..." Shikamaru strangles.

"Here are the rules, Shikamaru. You listen and talk less. You're here to learn. There is no equal exchange." Sai releases a long sigh. If sound could be perceived by the naked eye, his tone would tumble to the floor and break into itty bitty pieces of impersonal resentment.

Sai's voice is loud, but he speaks so softly.

"We are not equals. Even after the eight weeks. You are not _his_ equal." Sai nods his head at the shinobi, his grip still iron clad on Shikamaru's shoulder.

"So I need you to act as a pupil would—with eagerness and respect. Are we clear?" He pauses.

Shikamaru inhales. He curls his toes in his sandals. His hesitation doesn't come from doubt. It's his instinct to challenge. Something Asuma told him to get a hold of— _it's possible to know everything and absolutely nothing at the same time_.

Not every truth is a weapon forged against your body.

Shikamaru nods his head. "Sure."

"Good." Sai smiles at him for the first time. He stands from the table and the chair hisses against the floor. Sai picks up his pen again and re-opens the folder, considering another thought.

"What you're signing up for isn't a duty. It's more than that. You are working under no obligation. Each of us have our own personal goals. We aren't a brotherhood, but we exclusively operate under a mutual understanding that we are all trying to be the strongest version of ourselves. There is no such thing as completeness. We are always evolving."

"A collective of individuals." Shikamaru says matter-of-factly.

"You're speaking out of turn." Sai retorts mechanically.

And the masked shinobi struck Shikamaru with a powerful, yet subdued blow to the head. Not hard enough to give him a concussion, but strong enough that Shikamaru wets himself from shock.

His head fills up with static ringing.

"The next eight weeks are going to be about your endurance and discipline. When a superior summons you, you are expected to answer. Under no circumstance are you allowed to 'take a day off'. If you are summoned and do not follow procedure, that's an immediate termination from training. Tardiness is unacceptable."

It's difficult for Shikamaru to conceive the 'best' version of himself sitting in a puddle of his own urine. The warmth is startling as it trickles down his leg—his brain has yet to process how cold the room had been. He shudders.

Sai spins the pen in his hand as he walks around the table, not seeming to mind the urine pooling around his sandals.

"No one here wants to see you fail."

Shikamaru overcomes the dizziness of his discomfort. Clenching his jaws, he holds Sai's patronizing stare. He frowns so hard, he worsens his throbbing headache, entire face still on fire as if the fist is perfectly nestled against his temple. Held in place. The ridges of the knuckles pressing against his skull, a detail he can't nod off. This pain is specific and he will be sure to remember it until he dies.

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Nothing smells worse than cooked hair. Ino thought she hated the loud smell of coffee in the morning. Her hair sizzling makes her think otherwise. She frees a tuft from the wand, the curl unravels and bounces around her cheek.

 _Later_ —it's a hard rock in her throat. A whole day had gone by, still pending at ten in the morning. She wonders what he does so often that eats up his time. Living with him, she knew that he didn't live chaotically.

For someone so lazy and unmotivated, Shikamaru woke up and went through the same routine. Rarely breaking it. He never missed any of his three meals. Whenever he left, he made a point to come home no later than an hour after sunset.

Ino damn near burns her ear off bringing the wand too close to her scalp. She flinches. Half of her hair spirals around her shoulders, the rest she pins back with bright blue clips.

After an hour, she finishes curling all of her hair. As she looks at her reflection in the vanity, a memory tingles the inside of her thighs. Some days she gets the gumption to tell Shikamaru every pressing thought, but it never comes out when they are face to face. Saying so would make it an absolute truth and not a wet daydream.

It's like saying 'I love you' in the middle of an orgasm.

It shouldn't count.

Ino looks at the clock and hisses a series of 'damn it's' under her breath. Her mother had asked her to be at the Akimichi house no later than 10:30 a.m.

11:00 a.m. becomes 11:30 a.m.

After a while she just stops watching the time.

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No sugar.

No salt.

No sex.

Not even one cigarette a day to suppress his appetite.

Shikamaru has a strong, pitiful feeling that these restrictions weren't temporary. Sai had called it a 'light fast'.

 _Give up something worn out for something new_ —he had said. What did Sai know about letting go?

"You look like shit." Choji stands over his bed. The sunlight burns Shikamaru's lids until he begins to see purple and orange spots, but he's too exhausted to roll under his covers.

"State the obvious...so I know it's real." Even his jaw hurts when he talks. What kind of punch lingers for so long but doesn't take you under?

Choji rolls up the blinds and nudges the window open. The fresh air extends Shikamaru's suffering. Freshly cut grass, the humidity lifting the scent of fabric softener from the vents, a painfully loud vibrating sound from god knows where...reminding him of the electric hum the hair clippers made against his scalp. His skull hasn't stopped rattling.

A head full of imaginary bees, Shikamaru opens one eye to observe Choji.

"I want to ask..." Choji sits down a plate of food.

"Don't ask." Shikamaru gags at the pungency. Whatever he had ingested hadn't worn off. Then he wonders if they had pumped him up with more drugs while he was blacked out.

Choji shuts his mouth, wheeling Shikamaru's old chair around. The plastic wheels squeak as he sits.

"I don't know how to feel about you getting into mess without me..."

"Mess? I just don't feel well. It's like food poisoning without the bubble guts." Shikamaru grumbles, using his sheets to wipe the sweat from his brows. For an hour he had battled with being extremely hot or cold. Kicking the sheets back then later rolling himself back up for the sensation of pressure.

"Your mom thinks that but I know better."

At that, Shikamaru really frowns.

Choji flips open the lid of the plastic container and helps himself to Shikamaru's supposed lunch. Both of them glaring.

"What are you accusing me of?" Shikamaru clears his throat.

"You never waste no time..." Choji licks his fingers, dipping and swirling his pinky in the side of sauce.

"You're saying a whole lot of nothing. I can't fix it if you don't tell me whats wrong." Shikamaru shoves back the covers to sit up right. Mindfully tugging his sleeves down to hide the bandages. He gives Choji a stern look.

"I don't know what I'm trying to say." Choji leans back, biting the food under his nails.

"Figure it the hell out. You've got five minutes or I'm pretending you never said a damn thing." Shikamaru throws a pillow at him with the little strength he has in his arms.

It takes him exactly five minutes. Choji closes the lid shut, swiveling side to side with a foot propped on a knee.

"It just feels like you've been leaving me out for the past couple of years."

"Out of what?" Shikamaru rubs his neck.

"Everything. It's like as soon as you got engaged to Temari, you just up and went—now you just come and go. We don't talk."

"You know everything about me, Choji..."

"Everything you want me to know."

There are certain things that no one needs to know. Shikamaru doesn't want to spend his time talking about the girls he slept with nor the drugs he used to combat his sleep deprivation. He's made progress now. The two bad habits he keeps now—telling the truth and smoking more than five cigarettes a day.

"There's just been times that I've needed you but you're always in a hurry or too busy."

He doesn't remember Choji ever being so sentimental.

"I'm here now." Shikamaru's tongue feels like paper in his mouth.

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She could run the entire way, but the dress is so tight, it's hard to breathe. Her stomach expands and the fabric feels as though it's going to tear. And if she runs, she'll sweat her curls into a pitiful state of limpness.

Tip-toeing on the hot pavement, she slides her feet into her white heels.

Along the way, she fantasizes. What if Shikamaru turned a corner right now? Would her anger vanish...or double?

There are better things she could be worrying about. Like what exactly does she expect of herself in the next five years?

Stumbling over a crack, she picks the hem of her dress from her panties.

If she were her mother, she'd be persistent in her anger as well. If you beat a dog hard enough, it will learn a new trick.

Ino's new trick is detaching herself from physical stimulus. Lighting the weight of her body so, that if the wind blows in the right direction, her soul will float into the sky.

But today, she keeps her feet planted on the surface. There's a destination today. If she survives she can melt into the comfort of her pillows later.

_'Later...'_

Ino sucks in her bottom lip.

Why make a promise you can't make good on?

She never made promises she couldn't keep.

A light blow of wind frees her bangs from the hairpin she had struggled with. She stops in front of a shop window to readjust it in place. Where she wants all of it to go, her hair is too thick and the bobby pin is too small to hold it.

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Karui is pregnant.

Choji's face loses color.

The Akimichi's aren't known for being conventional but they are the dictionary definition of traditionalists. They do things the right way, through their own methods, but never scandalous.

"You want to marry her so what's the big deal, Cho?" Shikamaru rubs his thumb along his brow.

"Yes, but not sooner than I had anticipated."

"Do you feel like you've made a mistake?

Choji pauses, bottom lip hanging low. He sniffs a fake sniffle as he reconciles with himself. Shikamaru's eyes widen.

"You're going to judge me."

"I won't." He's confident that he knows where Choji's heart is at.

"If I can't tell mom, then it's a mistake."

Shikamaru believes Choji is not giving his mother enough credit, but he keeps this thought to himself. Not everyone has a mom like Yoshino.

It takes all of Shikamaru to stand from his bed, but he's resilient. All in one piece and not dead. He looks down at Choji and releases a watery sigh.

The warmth of the sunlight lightens the walls of his bedroom. His bedroom glows or his eyes are still tired.

Shikamaru doesn't know what to say and Choji expects him to know an answer that hasn't been there to begin with.

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Ino tries to look on the bright side. Her mother will at least be pleased with her presentation. It will show that she cares somewhat. It doesn't matter that she is rotten on the inside. As long as her skin is still soft and smells nice, no one will suspect that something has gone amiss.

She stands outside the Akimichi gate, lacing and unlacing her fingers. Overcome by a sudden bout of anxiety. These people aren't strangers but she feels as if she is making a first impression.

The positive of it all is that the purpose of this gathering is for Kurenai. Kurenai will have to shoulder the burden of all the sad looks and questions. Ino will endure a small percentage of it.

"Ino— why are you just out here by yourself?"

She looks to her side.

Kiba is a face she hadn't expected to see. She takes a step away from the gate, the heat rising from her stomach to her face. If the wind strikes her the wrong way, she'll hunch over and vomit.

But she keeps her composure. Akamaru runs up to her legs, pressing his tongue to her skin, dragging it up to her knee cap. His saliva mixing with the coat of her moisturizer causes a gooey sensation against her skin.

Carrying a bag, Kiba stops beside her, chewing on a stick of beef jerky.

"I just wasn't ready to go inside, is all," She says as if it is a completely rational statement.

Kiba smiles crookedly at her, but doesn't say anything for a moment. She gets the feeling that he is at a loss for words.

"I mean, it is kinda depressing. I'm betting my life Kurenai hates it but...she doesn't have it in her to reject them." He speaks solemnly. "We can both use five more minutes."

Ino doesn't smile when he laughs awkwardly. She just stands beside him with her hands folded.

The conversation stops abruptly. They've never had much to say to each other. Some paths never cross, no matter how small the village is. Akamara sits between them thumping his tail on the concrete.

Kiba looks up at the sky, full of clouds.

"Last time I saw you, it was at the wedding."

"I barely remember that day..."

"Yea me neither. It went as fast as it came." He lightly chews on the remains of his jerky. "It wasn't meant for 'us' to remember anyway."

Another pause. It becomes obvious that he's grasping for words. He opens his mouth but closes it three times. Akamara makes a noise that sounds like a complaint.

"Ok, I'm pressing the button now!" Kiba announces.

"Ok." Ino mutters.

The button doesn't sound off a buzz nor a polite bell. It's silent, aside from the click it makes when Kiba removes the pressure of his finger.

Two seconds and the gate opens. Neither of them make sudden movements. Kiba's leg twitches but he waits. Biting down on her tongue, Ino resists the urge to snap at him. She has yet to declutter her mental head space.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." He breathes and makes the first step.

Ino watches Akamaru follow him to the front door. She steps inside the gate but doesn't move any further.

She needs ten more minutes.

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The Akimichi house is hysterical with forced happiness. People have their own methods of coping. Sometimes, when those sad people come together, it's a colorful catastrophe of distraught personalities. There is too much food for any normal person to consume. All of it for the sake of poor Kurenai, who needs nothing, therefore she never asks for anything. But people give regardless. And Kurenai takes because she'd rather carry the burden of her low spirits than to lower someone else's.

The Allied Mothers Force refused to dissolve itself. There's always been a thread that had sewn them all together but it never needed a name. The war had given them an unsolvable purpose. Kurenai is expected to participate in their journey to figuring the _nothing_ out.

"Ino, you've grown to be such a beautiful woman!" Mrs. Akimichi shoves a hot roll of bread into Ino's mouth. It's rude to turn down food in the Akimichi house. Ino struggles to eat it with a smile. It's her third roll in the past thirty minutes. She swallows it dry.

"Send your single sons her way—I want at least five grandkids." Ino's mother passes a wiggling Mirai to Hinata, who struggles like her arms are noodles. Ino catches herself scowling into space as she chews the bread. It stops having a distinct taste.

"I swear—every time I see you you're trying to auction her off!" Yoshino protests loudly, freeing Hinata of the struggling Mirai. It's been like a game of hot potato.

"Ino, what are you doing with yourself? Are you still single?" Mrs. Akimichi curls her lips into a frown. Yoshino rolls her eyes and sits Mirai on her knees. Kurenai absently eats at a plate.

Hinata gives Ino a passive expression. Ino swallows the last of the roll and scans all of their faces, waiting on answer, save for Yoshino who looks a lot like Shikamaru when he's agitated.

Her heart flutters. Hesitation parts her lips but moves no words. She and Shikamaru haven't had sex in a while, not since they've agreed to be 'friends' but they still fall into the routine of doing things as if they are a unit. He still kisses her like he means it. She means it too.

"Of course she is. She couldn't keep up with Sai!" Mrs. Yamanaka sips from a cup. She had either forgotten catching Ino in Shikamaru's arms or is truly committed to pretending it never happened.

Ino doesn't say a word. The world isn't going to allow her to forget Sai.

"Sai is such a nice young man—not hard on the eyes at all." Kurenai takes Mirai back from Yoshino.

"All I ask is for Ino to get some priorities or find the most eligible man to settle down with. It's the least she can do since she won't be carrying the Yamanaka name. Is it wrong to want the best for my daughter?"

"Give it a rest. She's not even in her mid twenties. Kiba are you single?" Yoshino slides her plate away and it doesn't go unnoticed by Mrs. Akimichi.

Kiba is clearly only there for Kurenai's moral support and to be Hinata's security blanket. He'd eaten in silence. Mirai has somehow escaped Kurenai's grasp and rolls on the floor with Akamaru, who also does not go unfed.

"Last time I checked I was." He says with a crumby mouthful. Hinata innocently glares at him like it's surprising news.

"See—he isn't worried about all this marriage mumbo jumbo!" Yoshino waves a hand in the air.

"Isn't Shikamaru engaged?" Mrs. Yamanaka arches a brow.

"Not anymore for the better. He's moody and shiftless. Stumbles home at all hours of the night. He came in this morning stomping loud through the house...said he doesn't feel well." Yoshino begrudgingly accepts another plate of food. Mrs. Akimichi makes her rounds like feeding people into a coma is her life's mission.

"If he eats all that I sent him he will feel better in no time!" Mrs. Akimichi interjects.

"Is he ok?" It's the most Ino has spoken.

"He has no other option but to be ok. He can't lay around my house all damn day." Giving a light shrug, Yoshino slides a cut of meat into her mouth.

"My point is..." Mrs. Yamanaka continues, "Ino doesn't volunteer. When was the last time you've taken up your duty as a kunoichi?"

Ino keeps her attention on her plate, swirling her chopsticks around in her food. Her face stolid. A tinge of red blooms at her cheeks.

"She hasn't contributed anything to the community. I don't have a son..."

"You don't need a son..." Kurenai interjects.

Ino drops her chopsticks and curls her hands into fists. No matter where she goes, she is the center of attention. Negative or positive. It's always been this way but she can't endure it today. There's no will in her to fight it.

Mrs. Yamanaka carries on, but Ino pushes herself away from the table.

The conversation deadens to a cleared throat and a cough.

It seems that no matter what Ino does or does not do, she'll always be at fault for something. Eating but never getting full. Expecting and not getting what she asks for.

Such is the cycle of her gluttony.

As she fiercely struts down the hall, the bottoms of her feet slapping against the hardwood floor, Ino notices the distant sound of something cracking inside of herself. It isn't her heart. It's the frame that had been supporting the image of her worldview. How she has perceived herself, the 'perfection' she had inherited from generations of beautiful women, the blood of men with fists strong enough to punch a hole in the Earth.

She makes it to the front door, a door she has gone in and out of many times, shoves her feet into her heels. In a fit, she kicks the other shoes into disorder.

"Ino..." Hinata stands at the first step of two like a sad apparition—in a white dress where the fabric bunches around her décolletage.

Saying nothing, Ino fastens the buckles of the straps.

"No one is judging you." Hinata says clearly.

Ino stomps her toes in place and brushes the long sweep of curls from her shoulder.

"I don't care if you do or don't."

Hinata takes the blow because they've endured the same training for the same amount of years.

Ino doesn't waste another moment inside the Akimichi house.

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Choji leaves disappointed—his energy eats up the willfulness that Shikamaru has managed to salvage after pissing himself.

There is no right answer for something so natural. Choji's anger confuses him. A thing so simple, a by-product of happiness shouldn't make a man forlorn.

Maybe Choji doesn't see himself as a man and that's what terrifies him.

Shikamaru criticizes his terrible way of thinking himself into a bad mood. He'd know the answer if he had been paying attention, like Choji had stated. Yet Shikamaru doesn't consider himself a man either. He just exists and his veins are prominent in his arms.

A part of him has died. He stepped out of the Hokage's office a different person. The progression is rapid, he feels it like he's falling and his guts have risen to his throat.

How should he exist now that he isn't the same person from forty-two hours ago?

As he places a pain pill on his tongue, the doorbell rings. This could mean that Choji has gotten over his hurt feelings and is ready to forgive him.

Walking out of the kitchen, he swallows the pill without water.

He can't foresee the next twenty-four hours.

Ino presses the doorbell three more times with her thumb. Shikamaru takes his time regardless of the time of day, but Ino shoves her thumb hard against the button one more time in hopes that the vibration will pick up her desperation.

He takes his time to unlock the door. The _click_ sound the knob makes as it turns instigates a tornado of butterflies in her stomach. She's never felt so sick for attention from one person.

The never-coming 'later' had incensed her.

Shikamaru opens the door, a target for her agony. She wants to hurt him, opening her mouth wide, but the words stop as she takes in the prominence of his ears without the thickness of his hair. He hasn't looked this way since he was seven.

He puts one hand over her mouth and the other behind her neck, guiding her inside. Ino wraps both hands around his wrist, huffs into his palm and kicks the door shut with her foot.

"Please do me a favor..." His voice is hoarse.

Ino nods slowly,a strand of golden hair trapped in her lashes, held in place by the clumps of mascara. She looks as if she has been crying, or trying not to.

"Keep it to yourself."

She hums into his hand, glowering. He waits a minute, until her eyes narrow into sharp slits. The pressure of his hand turns her face pink.

His skin roughly passing over her lips, he frees her. Two spaces between his fingers wet with her saliva. Cracking her lips into a smile, she tips his chin back with her hand, observing his face like she doesn't already know which angles are soft or hard.

"Your forehead looks so relaxed." Ino whispers.

He sighs through clenched teeth.

All that anger she has saved for him loses its solid form. It melts to a soft consistency. Loosening her neck but still warm in her chest. He removes her hand from his face.

"You're not funny." He huffs.

Ino kicks off her shoes and follows him into the living room. "I wasn't trying to be!"

Shikamaru mimics the pitch of her voice with a vocal fry. He throws himself down on the couch with too much of his weight, grimacing.

Ino stands over him. Quietly staring. Sullen. Shikamaru stares back up at her, folding an arm over his head.

"I'm sorry." She mutters. The short sleeves of her dress sit crookedly on her shoulders.

"No you're not," He says unemotionally.

That sounds like a challenge.

Shikamaru's expression doesn't change. He drops his foot to the floor with a hard thud. As he stretches, his shirt crawls up his abdomen. It's been a while since she's last seen his belly button.

If she could go back in time and warn her thirteen-year-old self, she can't say exactly if she would've believed it then. The monstrosity of her feelings has crawled from such a deep place, she can only imagine that it had been sitting and waiting for years. Growing in size. She can't recall nurturing it. She had always imagined that love would be something you could determine for yourself. As simple as picking a box cereal from the store shelf.

But that isn't the case at all.

It happens so abruptly. Even when she doesn't mean to, the ugly part of her soul that wants to only devour, it thirst and does not relent. Lust and gluttony become very indistinguishable.

Ino hikes up her dress and straddles him. His instant reaction is to grab her thighs, but before he can say anything, Ino inhales his breath and consumes any attempt to persuade her otherwise. Not that he really can.

He can only squeeze out her name and it's weak—she laps up the syllables and they slide down her throat. His hands run up the smoothness of her thighs, stopping at her hips, applying pressure at the defined curve of her bones with his fingertips.

Ino pulls away from his mouth and looks down at him. Her fingers grabbing at the fly of his pants.

She means to say something, because he glares at her in way that can be confused as pain. His look is dark, and she knows him well enough to recognize his conflicting thoughts. She blames herself.

Ino takes his hands and drags them above her hips, under her dress, up to her ribcage. The seams pop as she tugs it over her head, completely splitting the zipper on the side open. She can never wear it again. All the breath she's had been held frees itself, drawing life to the very dead feeling she's been dragging around for some time. Her hair musses to one side, the curls flattened.

Shikamaru brings his hands higher, sweeping over the path of her ribs. Not breaking eye contact, Ino slips her fingers inside of his pants and tugs them down enough to release his erection.

At this point, Shikamaru accepts defeat. He isn't disciplined, that cup of emotions overflows and wastes itself everywhere. Leaking out of all facets of his life. He tugs her panties to the side, abandoning the possibility of a consequence. He will just have to figure it out later.

She bends down to kiss him, burying her hands under his shirt. Rediscovering the definition of his muscles like a map she hasn't studied a million times already. He pushes himself inside of her and she sighs a noise into his mouth.

Ino starts with a slow rise and fall, to savor every minute it takes to reach her orgasm. The gradual climb is where she ought to pour all of her feelings, and she does. Meticulously because it's been a while. Where she places her hands matter—how she purposely doesn't take all of him until he raises his hips to meet hers.

As her feelings creep from their hiding place, they drag along the jagged frustration she cannot articulate. Its upsurge cuts her from the inside. Shikamaru rolls his hips against hers, and in a way unseen by the physical, his tongue absorbs the uproot of her exasperation.

If you suck on something long enough, your jaws will begin to ache.

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Skin tastes like salt. Shikamaru wonders if _that_ counts. He leans his head back and stares up at the ceiling fan. Pants still unbuttoned and an erection that persists even after an orgasm. He might not be as disciplined as he has hoped, but he had enough control to release himself against her stomach.

She didn't wipe it away either, which he found repulsively amusing. Ino slides back into her dress and sits next to him, managing to still look effortlessly stunning. She looks straight ahead into the shallow dimness of the living room.

"I'm going to have to burn this couch now." It's the first thing he says.

"Don't be dumb. You were most likely conceived on this couch." Ino brushes all her hair back with her fingers. The fabric hangs loose where it should be snug. The zipper had seen its last day, permanently flapping open. She slumps her arms and throws her head back next to his.

Shikamaru can't stop frowning. The muscles in his face won't allow him to relax. For four reasons—the most important one being his inability to smoke a cigarette.

"Shit." He says to himself, rubbing his face with his hands.

Ino watches him around the untidy fluff of her hair heaping around her face and neck. Her heart feels thirty pounds lighter.

" _Shit_? Am I a lousy lay now or something?" She dead pans.

Shikamaru hunches forward, sitting his elbows on his knees, pulling and massaging the skin on his face. Then he runs his hands through his short hair and scratches his scalp.

"No. It just shouldn't have happened."

"Why not?" She slightly raises her voice.

A sigh vibrates out of him, but other than that they share only space. No words. As their knees touch he sort of shudders. The heat of her skin ripples through him like a second climax.

"Whatever happened to _later_?" She drawls as she straightens the hem of her ruined dress.

He peaks at her over his shoulder. It takes him a minute to piece it together.

"I've been busy on duty, Ino."

"It's not like you've been outside the village—you're not that damn busy." She crosses her legs, thighs still unnecessarily wet.

"What would you know?" he rasps.

She sits up and her hair drapes around her arms, "Because I just know!"

Shikamaru contemplates the next thing to say, but his mind can't unhook itself from the vow he had taken. The simple principle of doing something you promised not to do in the dark—he sweats.

He resolves to keep his tongue pressed against the ridges at the roof of his mouth. His erection finally kills itself. Ino watches him intently with watery eyes, face ironed into a smooth frown.

"Sai made time for me and he wasn't committed to anything other than his self perseveration." She's not sure why she tells him this. It just comes out of her like the clap of thunder before a storm.

The statement isn't entirely true. Even if it were only ninety percent fabricated, it burns him up. Now she has his undivided attention.

"Didn't he leave _you_?" It was what he had been told.

A lump rolls down her throat. In this moment, Ino finds out that her strength is not immense. Only a fake substance that she had dug up from the bloodied soil, caked onto her body and called skin.

Sai did leave her, but her heart had never settled itself next to his.

This is the first time Shikamaru has ever shattered her—the emphasis in his 'you' sticks itself to every empty corner of her self conscience.

But her hurt feelings don't foam up in her mouth. Ino gets up, almost stumbling but she catches herself.

"What difference does that make?" She meekly asks of him.

Shikamaru stands above her eye level. Ino takes a step back as if he were about to strike her down with something blunter than a fist. She suddenly feels the urgency to protect the parts of her heart that are still soft and untouched.

Her body language tells him not to answer it. Ino has never shied away from him. It takes everything not to say something just so she can respond in the way that's familiar.

Ino quickly collects herself and swings away from him with all of her hair. She moves entirely too damn fast for his heart. It can't catch up with that part of his brain that forms sentences.

She's already at the door snatching up her white heels, a whole seven feet away before he pulls her name out of his wind pipe.

"I didn't mean it that way." He doesn't know what he meant. Sai is a nonfactor in the context of 'them'.

Ino hurls one of her shoes in his direction. He catches it with little effort.

She wipes the beginning of her tears with the tips of her fingers, but all of that preserved misery rises like bile in the back of her throat. Gripping her other shoe, she unravels into the kind of sob that pushes all the air from the lungs. It's the kind of cry that empties the subconscious.

Shikamaru tosses her shoe on the couch then approaches her, but Ino lunges the second shoe right at his chest. He doesn't catch it this time, the impact startles him. Physically, it does not hurt but it stirs up a feeling of anxiousness.

Unable to wrap his head around her fury, he can't shake his speech to form an apology.

Ino slams the door in his face, stepping back out into the world shoeless. She leaves him to ponder this distinct taste of fear. He is losing and regaining simultaneously at rapid speed.

Shikamaru throws his hands up and lets out a gusty suspire.

What is he to do with two of the most important people in his life angry with him?

He drops down to scoop up her heel by the strap. Another breath to realign his emotional well-being. He no longer sweats because he is agitated, but he is hungry for food of substance.

Then he falls over and sits on the floor like a child. The sunlight burns through the windows and stretches his silhouette across the floor. For all the shadows he could manipulate, something about his had always been terrifying.

Temari had told him it's because he cannot recognize himself.

Shikamaru observes the worn bottoms of the shoe and fathoms all the pain they'd caused Ino's ankles and calves.

A crawling sensation tickles his right arm, the one where they had stuck him with the most needles. Shikamaru tosses the shoe indignantly away from him and rolls back his shirt sleeve. Barely the size of a button, a shiny black bug journeys down his forearm.

He smashes it with his palm.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I updated pretty fast this time! I drank a tall glass of inspiration and wrote this in a week, I think? Maybe two? Anyway thanks for the reviews. When I'm low on spirits I reread this just to keep myself motivated. It's really nice when people find value in something you created. I wanted this chapter to be much longer but I felt like this was a proper stopping place. It's twenty pages long. Also couldn't have done this fic at all without some of Channel Orange or Ctrl. Specifically Broken Clocks from Ctrl. Anyway thanks so much! See you next time.


	9. REM Stage

Ino has always taken the role as an adversary in his life. Since she was five, if he had to pick a starting point. The worst about it is that she does it without trying hard. It's just a skill she has sharpened over time. And then she dropped off the face of the earth for a year and a half. _Well_ —it took him a year and a half to realize she hadn't been present.

It feels wrong to touch things in his mom's house without washing his hands. There's no possible way of Yoshino ever figuring out that he's touched the walls with dried semen on his hands, but he won't be able to comfortably watch her reach for the door knobs.

Shikamaru scrubs his hands with soap then again with dish washing liquid between his fingers. If bleach didn't burn, he'd dip his hands in that too. He shuts off the sink, watches the suds swirl down the drain.

He comes to recognize an error in his way of thinking. After all this time, maybe he and Choji hadn't given her enough credit. They had missed something in the middle of making themselves feel better.

 _'No commitments.'_ Kakashi reminds him.

Shikamaru had lied to him though. It's probably the first lie he's ever told in his adulthood.

He observes his arm and peels off the gauze. Tiny clusters of dried skin made his skin red.

"What the fuck did they do to me?" Shikamaru asks no one.

The years, months, days, minutes to seconds he spent doing any and everything cause him to fall apart. Shikamaru thinks over and over again until his chest tightens— _What have I gotten myself into?_

He violently throws up into the sink. His stomach is empty but he heaves like he's infected with a virus. It's just clear acid that collects around the drain, mixed in with bubbles of his saliva.

The front door opens and he shuts on the faucet. Shikamaru does his best to compose himself, using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe away the tears a body makes when the throat and nasal cavity is on fire.

"I thought you didn't feel well?" Yoshino stands in the doorway. She looks so much smaller than she normallyl does to him. He's not all that tall to begin with. _It must be the dizziness of not eating a proper meal._

"I don't." He rubs a trail of snot on his wrist.

Yoshino glares at him with all the love he's been missing for a while. It can't be mistaken for anything else. She throws her bag on the counter and snaps for him to take a seat at the table.

"Did you eat what I sent you?"

"Choji ate it." Shikamaru sits.

"Shika...I really don't get your unhealthy habits." She begins to rummage through the fridge. "You might as well eat gravel for all the cigarettes you smoke."

"I just don't have the appetite."

"Because you sit in your room and mope like you don't have anything to live for."

Shikamaru shuts his mouth. Is that what he looks like to her? He rubs his chin.

"I don't mope."

"Don't argue with me. What _do_ you have an appetite for?" She looks at him sideways.

No sugar or salt. Shikamaru folds his arms and considers his options.

Yoshino stands away from the fridge, propping her elbow against the door, one hand on her hip.

"Rice." He fakes a smile.

"That's it!?" She sucks her teeth.

"That's it."

She doesn't challenge him, just frowns and makes it her mission to satisfy her only child.

"Did I miss anything?" He wouldn't have gone even if his body felt up to it. With all of the focus he has, multiple conversations in one small room make him irritable. Most of all, he doesn't want to participate in a pity party thrown for Kurenai. It not only reminds him that Asuma isn't alive, it makes him feel like a failure for not being able to prevent it.

"Nothing you would've found interesting." She takes a pot from the cabinet.

The rice cooker he bought her sits on top of the fridge still in its box.

He holds down the need to throw up again. His mouth fills up with spit.

"When was the last time you talked to Ino?" Yoshino does everything the old fashioned way: a pot and water. Technology imposed too much on her particular need of doing things the way she had been taught. She scoffed at rice cooker like he had insulted her enough to be disowned.

"Not too long ago." A half truth, not exactly a lie. He realizes his fly is still unzipped and corrects it under the table.

"It's a wonder she hasn't run off and changed her name—Chiharu has her whole hand down her throat." Yoshino rinses the rice through a seive.

Shikamaru doesn't know how to respond. Ino rarely complains about her parents, even as a child. She always zooms in and complains about everything else that offends her.

"And you don't have your hand down my throat?" He teases.

"I'm proud of you no matter what you choose to do or not to do." Yoshino dumps the rice in the pot and sits it on the stove. "Just don't go off and die."

"That's nice to know." Hopefully, he won't be dying any time soon.

"I get wanting the most for you, but I don't think I can openly express my unhappiness with you to an audience." She adds a little bit of water.

"What did she—"

"Chiharu embarrassed the girl. She ran out with her tail between her legs and you don't just run out on a full Akimichi plate..."

Shikamaru bites down and his jaws lock. If Ino had just talked about it, he would've been able to save himself from a sticky orgasm on the couch. He lets out a ragged sigh. The entirety of his face turns pink as he revisits their skin clapping.

Enough time passes for him to not realize that Yoshino had finished his rice. She sits a bowl in front him. The sound it makes against the table startles him straight out of his day dreaming.

Kakashi is right. There's a possibility that he won't finish the eight weeks. If he can't uphold simple rules that is. His future is a lot bigger than how wet or dry his dick is.

Yoshino peers down at him through the thick of her lashes. The corners of her lips are pinched downward but it's not a frown.

"As much as I love Temari and wanted to see you two married, I'm glad it didn't happen. You can only be as happy as your child." She helps herself to a bowl as well and sits across from him.

.

.

Anbu is going to make him a liar. He's going to have to lie to everyone. Civilians, family, victims, and prey alike. There's only one way to navigate impenetrable secrecy and that's to treat everyone as if they are a suspect. Shikamaru brushes his teeth in hopes to scrub away the craving for a cigarette.

Fakery isn't his strong suit. He hadn't been raised that way. Shikaku and Yoshino always told him the truth even if it made Shikamaru hate them for a day.

With a barely satisfied hunger, the toothpaste that he accidentally swallows causes his stomach to ache. He spits out the rest and turns the faucet off.

"I'm going to have to feel like this for eight weeks." Shikamaru talks to himself.

And for a very brief moment, he doubts his ability. Shikaku didn't raise him to be a punk, but fear is a normal human emotion. Not allowing himself to feel it could later result in an irreversible trauma. Avoiding his reflection, he shuts the light off in the bathroom.

Choji had left the container open and the room smells like it.

Sai told him to never get too comfortable— Shikamaru looks at his bed and tries to quantify a level of comfortability without being paranoid. Ino's shoes lay in the middle.

He picks them up by the buckle, lets out a grumbly sigh and glares out the window perfectly positioned in the middle of the wall.

"Why am I always apologizing first?" He asks his faint and transparent reflection in the window. It's because he loves her unconditionally, at his own expense. Shikamaru tightens his hold on her shoe straps and heads out of his room.

He just hopes that between now and the trip to Ino's place, his time to himself will go undisturbed.

But he stops to listen to Yoshino holding a conversation as he makes it down the stairs. He hears Sai before he turns into the kitchen and his stomach does a back flip.

Whatever they had been talking about, it had charmed away Yoshino's hard exterior. Shikamaru can't imagine Sai being good at jokes nor compliments. Sai has a beguiling effect on women, but Shikamaru didn't think his mother could easily fall victim to it. Sai sits at the table, specifically Shikaku's place, and wears his usual expression of indifference. Shikamaru has to remind himself that it's not intentional—that he's just readily defensive.

"Shikamaru, you're supposed to speak to a guest." Yoshino waves a hand.

Shikamaru doesn't budge from the doorway. Ino's shoes dangle at his side. Sai conjures up a slow and steady smile because they both share a similar thought—Shikamaru has to submit to whatever Sai demands of him.

Before Shikamaru can speak...

"Those belong to Ino." Sai stands up from Shikaku's chair. Yoshino makes a face at both of them. Words just refuse to reveal themselves to Shikamaru.

"Yea—" He tries to say more but Sai cuts him off.

"Is that where you're heading to?" Sai's presence is commanding and he seems unaware of it. He's curious in a way that isn't malicious. However the circumstances make Shikamaru's blood boil.

"Why did Ino leave her shoes?" Yoshino rests her chin in her hand, frowning incredibly hard, the wrinkles in her face defined.

"She was in a hurry." Shikamaru's words finally come but they aren't what he needs to use. He grimaces at how incriminating the statement is. Sai bewitches women and makes Shikamaru uncomfortable.

"I can come with you." Sai folds his arms then turns to smile at Yoshino. "It was nice getting the chance to properly meet you, Mrs. Nara."

Yoshino seemingly forgets that she had caught Shikamaru in the middle of a half truth and beams at Sai. "You're most definitely welcome, Sai. Rub some of your good sense off on Shikamaru."

Sai nods his head and turns to Shikamaru with a perfect smile. It's a very real smile, like Sai had gotten genuine joy out of Yoshino's company. Shikamaru doesn't even bother to challenge it, not that he has the option to. He sucks in a breath, and waves a weak hand at Yoshino. Sai follows him out the front door.

Shikamaru fumbles with the keys in the lock. All of his nerves are shot. He locks the door, blinded by a white rage.

"What's it like having a mother?" Sai still has his arms folded.

Shikamaru slides his keys back in his pocket and glares at Sai, bewildered.

"Are you being serious?" It rolls effortlessly off his tongue and sounds cruel. Sai shakes his head, doesn't blink.

The sun is out of view but a faint gold glow bleaches the impending darkness.

"Answer the question." Sai commands him with his natural softness.

Shikamaru stands straighter. Ino's heels poke his thigh. He doesn't know how to answer it, pressed to open his mouth because he might not answer it the way Sai wants him to.

"It's a feeling you just have to know. I can't explain it." _Some people have bad mothers._

Sai lowers his head, takes his eyes off Shikamaru and looks up the road, licking his lips then biting the bottom one. Sai begins to walk in the direction of Ino's apartment and Shikamaru follows behind him.

"I see." Sai says after a while and a dark silence falls over them again. Shikamaru stares at the stars blinking down at him. It's amazing how your life can be dug so far in a hole but the world still remains beautiful, completely indifferent and oblivious to the shitty things humans get themselves into. The stars shimmer for Sai too, even though nothing good is about to transpire in the next hour or so.

Out the corner of Shikamaru's eye, he notices a shadowy figure scaling the buildings. Of course, Sai wouldn't come alone. At first he thinks, for Anbu, they should be more inconspicuous, but then he understands that they want him to see them. It's purposefully only at a peripheral view.

"What if she's not home?" Shikamaru sort of hopes she isn't out of one in a thousand chances. The village is small but something feels wrong about bringing a shadowy entourage to her place. Sai had stolen a secret and exposed it to the world.

"She's home." Sai says cooly.

Shikamaru had either shut off the spot in his brain that understood time or he had never realized how close she lives to his mother's house. Which is odd for him because he knows the exact time, down to the seconds, it takes for him to get anywhere else. Had it been a subconscious choice not to know? Did his mind just suddenly choose not to remember the minutes between him and Ino?

They stop at the bottom of the stairs. Sai faces Shikamaru, lips in a straight line as he leans against the railing. Shikamaru gapes at him discomposedly.

"I'll give you ten minutes." Sai doesn't stutter.

"You don't wanna say hi?" Shikamaru's palms are sweaty.

Sai smiles and shakes his head. "Not at all."

Ino is home. The light turns on in her bedroom and he can make out her silhouette behind her curtains.

Shikamaru doesn't waste another minute. As he climbs the stairs, Sai says to him, "Don't go inside."

"Why?" Shikamaru frowns.

"Because you won't come out in ten minutes." Sai is befuddled that Shikamaru has the nerve to ask like it isn't a very clear order. "If you can't do something that simple, then you're wasting my and Kakashi's time."

Ten minutes is a generous amount of time to spend on a porch.

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.

.

The world just isn't right after any kind of disagreement with Shikamaru. She loses the ability to think straight, dropping things when her arms aren't full, occasionally stubbing her toe against hard corners.

The bottoms of her feet sting. She had chapped and beaten them on the way back. The ground had been so hot that she felt the heat rising like blood to her head. In the moment, it didn't matter, until she stepped her feet on the cool wooden floor of her apartment.

As she tiptoes around her place, she wishes she hadn't exploded. She could've held it in a little longer, screamed it inside of a jar or a pillow, like she has been doing for the past couple of years.

 _'I'm numb_.' She had said some months ago.

 _'That's not numb. There's nothing numb about anything you do.'_ Shikamaru made smoke rings that widened into the air.

Ino drops her brush on the floor and just stares at it. The hair tangled in its teeth make her skin crawl, even though it's all hers. She feels terrible but she deserves to feel like this.

She doesn't know how to change the way she is or if it's possible to be less violent towards herself. Any other way feels untrue.

Her heart thumps like it could punch clean through her chest with Shikamaru's sequence of knocks on her door. If it had been anyone else, she would've shut off all the lights and hid behind her couch.

Not for him though. She can't push him out of her life. She had tried and her body protested against it.

When she answers the door, he looks unusually dejected but she blames herself. Her stomach fills up with butterflies. She never realized how much she loves his ears.

"You left your shoes." He smirks painfully, holding out her shoes.

Ino catches herself relearning his new face. His haircut is never going to get old.

"What if I don't want them anymore?" She lightly scoffs.

"Pfft...well I sure as hell can't get my feet in them."

She opens the door wider and waits for him to come inside. He doesn't and it confuses her. He just extends the shoes and she glares at them. They aren't what she wants and he knows this.

"You're not going to come inside?"

"I have some business to take care of. If I come inside I won't make it out in time."

"Right. Like that's a bad thing." She brushes her bangs out of her eyes.

"Don't say it like that." He tosses the shoes inside and they roll on the floor.

"You're really not..."

"I'm _really_ really not gonna..." The most he does is lean against the door frame, close enough to inhale the scent of her shampoo and shower gel.

"Tell Kakashi to hire another glorified secretary." She snorts.

"Woooow. No. I'm not doing that." He laughs.

The overgrowth that made it difficult to love anything had revealed itself to her, yet truth be told, Ino isn't ready to carve it out. It's been there for so long, she's not sure if she is capable of surviving without it. Shikamaru regards her with so much restraint, she lets out a long breath.

"I'm sorry." He means it with every cell in his body.

"I bet you are." She stares back at him, doesn't blink.

"I will make it up to you."

"How?"

"I don't know yet but I will."

"Just five minutes?" She tries again, just to upset herself.

"I can't, Ino."

"Then I will see you later."

"Ok..." His smile fades and she tries her hardest not to melt.

They linger, waiting on the first goodbye.

"I'm sorry." Ino doesn't have it in her to close the door.

"I forgive you. See you later." He licks his bottom lip then bites down, tearing skin.

Ino keeps the door open until she can no longer hear his footsteps.

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And it's done just as quickly as it started. It didn't take ten minutes.

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Shikamaru can't help but to speculate that Sai had meant to invade his safe spaces. If it is the case, then he had succeeded, but Sai gives him no inkling that his assumption is right. Shikamaru does his best not to show that his focus is divided.

They journey into the outskirts until the sky is completely dark, clouds casting a smokey film before the moon. Summer bugs are a lot louder at night, away from the human invasion of buildings. They scream through the shadows with an instinctual indifference towards the season coming to a slow end.

"Have you ever considered your limits, Shikamaru?" Sai turns his head.

"In what capacity?" Shikamaru can think of a few without context, but it's small things like not being able to hold his pee or his irrational disgust towards wet leaves on tile floor.

"Your pain threshold."

"I don't like any kind of pain. Mild nor severe." Shikamaru rubs the back of his neck.

"If you expose yourself to it enough, it's just an itch...or a sneeze stuck in your nasal cavity." Sai stops walking and stands directly in front of Shikamaru.

The air smells like still water, the grass is damp, the soil soft clumps under his feet.

"Give me your right arm." Sai doesn't ask.

Shikamaru stands in place, face crinkling into a dark glower. He makes a fist and the corner of Sai's mouth twitches. It's so dark that the shadows around Sai's face give the faint illusion that his eye sockets are empty. He shifts to a different angle and he looks less like a ghost.

Sai takes his arm without force. Shikamaru allows himself to submit to the slight pressure of Sai's fingers on his skin, drawing air through his teeth as Sai pushes up his sleeve.

The tree canopies rustle and feet plummet to the surface like comets beating against the Earth. Five shadows take solid form, one shadow becomes fire and Sai's skin shimmers back to something human-like. Out of the dark, Sai had obtained a shuriken and presses a sharp edged into the scabbed patch of red on Shikamaru's forearm.

Sai doesn't press too hard. Squinting, he observes the puss pooling around his thumbnail. The fire faintly lights Shikamaru's arm, bright enough to make out the protruding vein in it, not enough to help with a precise cut. The reflex to jerk back is halted by an arm locked around Shikamaru's neck, and his free arm constricted behind his back.

There aren't enough days in a year, not even in a lifetime, that prepares you for pain. He doesn't gag at the sight of blood anymore, can breathe it in like the scent of clean linen.

Sai prods at the puss, peeling back the dried layer of skin and crust. The wind sweeps away the flakes.

"I don't need to tell you that this is going to hurt, but you cannot scream."

Shikamaru understands. Screaming would draw attention and it defeats the purpose of the trial. Fortunately, for the cause, Shikamaru believes he lost the ability to scream years ago.

"Why not?" Shikamaru just needs a few more seconds to adjust his eyes against the makeshift shadows of his peers and the shapes of their mask.

Sai doesn't look up. With clenched jaws, he digs the edge of the shuriken under Shikamaru's skin.

The pain disperses itself like a tiny explosion. He feels it in his knuckles, up the length of his neck to the tip of his earlobe, but he doesn't make a noise. Shikamaru balls a fist and his breathing scatters.

Sai digs around in the wound, and Shikamaru's only wish is that he doesn't touch an artery. Despite the pain being insufferable enough to faint, he doesn't think it's the worst thing that's ever hurt him. Physical things hurt but the soul can't easily be sewn back together. You can't catch smoke nor force its shape.

Sai drags his thumb through an outpour of blood and puss, then uses both of his thumbs to push. Shikamaru's elbow throbs like it could be broken, but it's just the skin swelling and tightening. Sai makes a noise of satisfaction when he finally finds what he had been searching for.

The harder he presses his thumbs into Shikamaru's skin, through the thick of blood, three worm-like shapes free themselves. Like tiny grains of swollen rice, they wiggle in distress to the sudden cool air. Attempting to drown themselves in his blood, Sai picks them with his fingers.

They'd put larvae inside of him. Shikamaru's skin pales to Sai's complexion. _This still isn't the worst thing to ever happen to him_. He tells himself so he doesn't strangle on his own vomit. With all the muscles in his throat, he gulps it back down.

"It looks worse than it feels, I bet." Someone's voice is muffled under their mask.

Two bugs crawl from his mangled flesh.

Sai brings the larvae closer to his face like a child unearthing an obvious truth. The arm that had been suffocating Shikamaru frees him and his body's immediate response to the trauma is to drop to his knees. It stings like his skin had been rubbed off against hot cement. He breaks out into a sweat, shuddering— he counts a series of tens in his head.

"Who told you to sit?" The voice comes from behind him.

"Let him sit." Sai rebuts. "We're going to be here for a while."

'A while' makes him dizzy. Shikamaru shakes but he overcomes the fear of touching the mess of his arm. The warmth of his own touch jolts him. His thoughts circle back to Kakashi and he cringes at the sickening amount of confidence he had when suggesting Anbu.

Change is a violently slow process. Shikamaru becomes aware that he's replacing something old for new. Not exactly discarding it, but giving it a proper burial. Like he had been raised to, he gets up with a rush of adrenaline.

"What's your definition of weakness, Shikamaru?" Sai's voice synchronizes with the shake of the trees.

"Accepting that there isn't an answer or reason for a problem." Shikamaru's palm is sticky with blood.

A shinobi steps from the small circle they had formed around him. The eyes of his mask protrude gibbously red like a lunar eclipse.

"If you can't question something, how do you know it's right or wrong...if you just accept it without consideration?" Shikamaru takes a deep breath and his vision tries to fix itself.

Sai extends the larvae in his palm to the shinobi in the moon-eyed mask. The mouth of it like dulled fangs. Not an animal Shikamaru readily recognizes. Perhaps, not an animal at all.

Nodding slowly, Sai wipes his hands on his shirt. His expression stays the same.

The shinobi tugs his mask back slightly and licks the larvae from his fingers with his mouth open wide. He rolls them back on his tongue and swallows. Two gulps as though it were a minor struggle to ingest them without chewing.

"History warns us that a shinobi plagued by too many questions shows signs of disloyalty." The shinobi speaks directly to Shikamaru with a heavy focus.

"He asked for my definition." Shikamaru now understands that the weight of someone's gaze can be more than just a euphemism. If it weren't for the searing pain in his arm, he'd challenge the shinobi's gravitas.

"I didn't ask to debate it." Sai places himself in the middle of the one sided crossfire. "Are we not individuals?"

"I didn't say we weren't, but when have we ever considered balancing the rights or wrongs of what we do? I think, before we do anything else with him, we destroy that sentiment or he is already unfit." The shinobi scoffs and tugs his mask back down over his mouth.

Shikamaru's spirit recoils and he can't place why the statement is so personal. Opinions are leaky assholes. Some gape. Some are too tight to whistle through.

"If that's how you feel..." Shikamaru catches himself.

"I don't think anyone here cares to unpack what is and isn't moral bankruptcy." Sai air-slices his hand across his neck. "If that's your concern, perhaps you've lost sight of yourself and should be dismissed immediately."

At that, the shinobi shuts his mouth, but gravity settles his invisible leer on Shikamaru's shaky shoulders.

After a lengthy stretch of silence, Sai rattles his throat and Shikamaru recognizes Shino's voice behind the mask. The locusts and crickets had stopped in the middle of his accusation with the insentient desire to listen.

"I like your definition, Shikamaru. It gives me some optimism for your first trial." Sai gestures for two of his peers to step forth. A bear and a tiger mask, both of them cradle scrolls.

Shino had already held his own trial and had ultimately decided that Shikamaru is guilty. He tries to remember the last thing he had said to Shino, combs through the months of memories in agonizingly long meetings. What he does remember is hardly an interaction. Shikamaru only remembers passing off a folder he hadn't opened. No words were exchanged.

"You're not known for being the strongest physically—do you consider yourself to be strong?" Sai helps the bear and tiger mask with their scrolls.

"Stronger than average, but not the strongest." Shikamaru frowns but he can't feel the muscles in his face sagging.

"That's your honest opinion of yourself?" Sai drums his fingers against a scroll.

"It's a realistic opinion." Shikamaru has a thought— _Shikaku blesses him from the blackness of outer space_. It has to be the only reason he hasn't collapsed from the trauma.

Sai unrolls the scroll, in one sweeping motion, like untying a soft ribbon. The wind blows hard enough to whistle, pushing the clouds west. Sai uses the same shuriken to slice open his palm. He cuts through his skin with a horrifying lack of effort.

Gently sprawling his fingers against the paper, Sai's lips move but the wind suffocates sound. A cloud of smoke rises from the scroll, curling up as tendrils into the westbound air.

"Before man used tools, we only had our teeth, nails, and senses. Imagine the superiority of a body that could purely sustain itself on adrenaline—I think we can get close to that state of being but we can never replicate it." An assortment of weapons rise from the misty puff of nothingness. The impact of the jutsu splits his dark bangs haphazardly across his sweaty forehead.

"We evolved, Sai." Shikamaru wheezes.

"The way we interpret the world around us evolved but our primitive instincts are still there. Every time you have sex, the irritation you feel when you've gone an unreasonable amount of time without eating..." Sai stands on his feet and admires his own effort.

"Pick three and pick wisely." Shino, again, steps out of turn but Sai remains collected.

"What am I picking for?" Shikamaru's black sleeve is hardened by dried blood.

"Three tools in the absence of your jutsu. I want to measure what you can do in the worst case scenario." Sai simply states.

"So I'm just supposed to let you beat my ass?" Shikamaru bristles.

"If that's your attitude, then sure." Sai folds his arms behind his back.

Not having an option other than withdrawing from the whole damn thing, Shikamaru steps up with his limbs like cement—hard, heavy, wading through imaginary water.

If by the will of some magnificent force he were sapped of all his inherited strength, he has five options: flash bombs, a tanto, kunai, shuriken, and kusarigama.

First, swallowing a wad of spit, he reminds himself that he's here to sate an appetite for something different. Then he begins to coach himself through the 'worst scenario'.

"You can't use your jutsu." Sai's voice is like a sharp jab.

"I figured that's what you meant the first time." Shikamaru observes the blades, but his body can't manage the work it would require for technique. Where he sweats profusely, his cotton shirt sticks to his skin.

"If I fail?" Shikamaru looks to Sai.

"We learn a weakness. That simple."

And Shikamaru decides on two flash bombs and one kunai. He waits for another stipulation, but no more come, so he lets out a shaky breath of relief. Sai nods and gleamingly smiles.

The circle breaks and someone snuffs out the fire. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. The clouds unwrap the moon, freeing enough light that he can still make out Sai and Shino's mask among the many in his vantage point. They all look like glowing eggs the way the moon cuts light across the angles of their masks.

"No one wants you to fail, Shikamaru." Unfortunately, that hardly matters. He doesn't want to resign himself to defeat, but the rawness of his torn skin burns. It looks a sooner loss than any kind of victory.

Shikamaru blinks and before he can set his mind on prevailing, only Shino stands in the clear line of his vision. The rest had melted into the shadows of the forest. Even Sai.

An unexpected cold feeling of aloneness takes his breath away. Shikamaru's second instinct is to put as much distance as he can between them. He takes off in the opposite direction with all the strength in his legs. It was like dragging bricks with his ankles.

 _If you don't try, you might as well lay down and die_. Asuma used to say a lot.

_Trying makes it easier to lose._

Shino falls in place behind him, as if he expected Shikamaru to fudge for as long as possible. Shino's footsteps are soft like wind combing through tall grass. To be someone so comfortable in natural darkness and shadows, Shikamaru struggles to pick out the shape and thickness of the trees. When he holds out his arms to hoist himself onto a branch, his muscles tighten and ache. A bone pops. He had moved the wrong way and angered a joint.

Shino deliberately misses and lunges his fist directly into the three. The bark doesn't crack. He'd hit it with a controlled force that disperses a vibration. Shikamaru scales the tree until there isn't a branch left to climb. He makes it high enough to peer out into the sky. The tops of the trees sway like a dark ocean. Shikamaru gives himself sixty seconds to think.

The moon stares back at him.

Sai had dug the bugs out of his arm, but he considers the chance of being poisoned. How much has it contributed to his handicap? Is there a bug somewhere under his clothes? On a scale from one to ten, his pain is at gloomy seven. Holding the kunai in his mouth, he proceeds to pat himself down under his shirt, then his pockets.

Sixty seconds pass.

He looks down and curses. Shino had moved into an unoccupied shadow. Rummaging in both pockets, he notices a distinct changing pattern of darkness along the bark. It moves in the opposite direction of the natural shadows disturbed by the breeze.

Two minutes.

He fishes out Asuma's lighter, takes two attempts to light it and holds the fire downward. A swath of Shino's beetles trail in his direction. They break off into different routes like a black river cutting through terrain.

"Shit." Shikamaru says under his breath. Setting the tree on fire would alert the village, and that's what he shouldn't do. Anbu isn't about chaotic victories. As he gauges what he can and can't do, he senses the closeness of Shino's chakra a moment too late.

Shino emerges like a bolt of lightning from the rustling leaves. His strikes Shikamaru in the chest with a tempered strength that knocks all the air from his lungs.. The kunai cuts the corner of Shikamaru's lips when it falls from impact.

The fall from the tree doesn't hurt nearly as bad as gasping for air. His head rings on the way down but he fears the little time he has more than what the ground will feel like against his body. He conjures up enough chakra to land on his knees without breaking his bones. Shino's bugs crawl under his shirt and one down the bridge of his nose.

"I'm being easy on you, Shikamaru." Shino says above him. His feet crack the branches as he descends.

Shikamaru sits in place, picking the bugs from his face.

"Truthfully, I don't think you're cut out for this kind of work. You lack the right amount of ambition."

He isn't wrong. Ambition isn't what brought Shikamaru here. Shino stands on the last branch. The moon specks his chest with swaying shadows. Shikamaru can't help but observe how fitting the Anbu uniform is on Shino. Even though Shikamaru can't see his face, he doesn't look like a child playing pretend.

It all becomes very real. He's never had ambition.

A distinct memory of Asuma's smoke curling up to the ceiling hurts worse than his arm. He's at the cusp of vomiting, but the memory is too vivid. He can smell the brand of tobacco, the cleanliness of the room, and a fly burning itself against the light fixture.

Shino plants his feet hard on the ground and again, Shikamaru sprints in the opposite direction. His mind creates a clear path for his next move and he guesstimates the time he has before he can no longer depend on his chakra. Shikamaru decides to exert it. He scales another tree until he makes it to the top.

Shimmying out of his shirt, he leaves it dangling around his head. He counts Shino's pace as he retrieves the flash bomb from the pocket on his leg. He then wraps the sleeves of his shirt around his ears and eyes. When he's sure of the last step Shino has to make, he drops the flash bomb.

As soon as it detonates, Shikamaru gives himself two minutes before propelling into another tree. He doesn't look down to observe Shino. If he does he will lose focus on his plan.

Shino has several minutes of deafness and dark confusion. That's several minutes Shikamaru has to take apart Asuma's lighter. He snatches his shirt from his head and sits it on his shoulder. Shino groans a stream of obscenities. The bugs stop crawling, they sit in place on Shikamaru's skin. Unclamping one of his earrings, Shikamaru uses the pointed back of it to lift the bottom of the lighter open.

There's not a whole lot of fluid, but enough to set a trap.

Taking a deep breath, he climbs down the tree. It could either go very right or very wrong, but at least he tried. No one can fault him for trying.

Shino senses him before he drops from the last branch and plants a foot in his back. The flash bomb had only been a mild inconvenience. Shikamaru takes the blow because he has to. There's enough low hanging tree limbs and leaves above them to catch fire.

Shikamaru's only priority is to empty the lighter fluid in a circle around them. He does so while poorly dodging and taking a few lunges from Shino. As though fate had grown bored of favoring him, in the midst of dumping the rest of the lighter fluid around them, Shino catches him by his sore arm and thrusts a series of punches in his abdomen. Each punch worse than the last with Shino's consistent chakra control.

Asuma's empty lighter slipped from Shikamaru's greasy fingers.

"Our Lord Sixth ordered that we keep your face intact." Shino shoves Shikamaru back with an effortless kick. The amount of bugs that crawled on him double, some wiggling their way in his crusting wound.

"I don't think it's possible to make me any uglier..." Shikamaru rasps on his hands and knees. _That would be Kakashi's only stipulation_.

Shikamaru takes the window of opportunity, shoving himself on his feet. He leaps backwards and tosses his last flash bomb. The sparks start a fire.

His circle hadn't been perfect. He can tell even with his blurred vision. The ringing sounds like a whispery scream. If he didn't have ambition, he made up for it with his determination. Shikamaru pushes through his confusion. Shino stumbles back.

The wind stokes the fire. Twigs and leaves ignite and fall together. The bugs no longer cling to Shino's command. They rise frantically. The mass of their bodies together, the zip of their wings creating a subdued hum. Insects were drawn to light.

"Phototaxis." He had read about it. _Determination and curiosity_.

Shikamaru doesn't have to wait for Shino's next move. Shino serves him exactly what he wants. He pummels Shikamaru to the ground.

What is an Aburame without the control of bugs?

Shino hits him in the face multiple times before Sai intervenes. He manifests from the smoke, almost translucent against the fire. He tugs Shino to his feet.

"Not his face!"

Shikamaru reads Sai's lips. The ringing vibration fills up his head, but it's doesn't dull his sharpness. He draws up a knee and shoves all of his foot between Shino's legs with the last ounce of chakra he had been saving.

Shino's knees buckle and he vomits. It leaks from his mask onto Shikamaru's stomach. Sai steps back.

Shikamaru rolls from beneath him and stands. A branch consumed in flames cracks from the tree and falls. The bugs shake in unison.

Not looking in Sai's direction, Shikamaru summons his frustration and grief, thrusting his fist in the center of Shino's mask, cracking it in half. Eyes rolling back, Shino falls unconscious.

The spirit that kept Shikamaru from collapsing freed his body. He allows himself to feel the trauma and he too falls in a dead faint.

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Sakura holds up a tiny bottle of rosewood oil, observing the amount she has left through the light of her kitchen. The sleeve of her pink kimono rolls down to her elbow, her hair pulled back in a tight short ponytail, so tight, Ino can make out the bone behind her ear. She mutters as she sifts through her pantry of bottles, which Ino thinks is incredibly morbid to have next to a fridge.

"Do you not have any hyssop oil?" Ino winces. The bottoms of her feet are cracked and any applied pressure is painful. She sits propped on Sakura's kitchen table. Next time, she will know not to stampede her emotions onto scalding cement and sand.

"Hyssop oil..." Sakura repeats in a sing-song tune as she re-arranges the bottles. She hums a noise of satisfaction, pulling out the hyssop oil and kicks the pantry door shut.

Sakura turns to Ino and smiles—her prettiness stuns Ino with a sour melancholy. She had really grown into herself in a way that Ino covets. It's a natural attractiveness that you can't study up on. It occurs almost as suddenly as an earthquake. Once it cracks up the old surface, a new one emerges and it only changes by human will or another disaster.

"Give me your foot." Sakura pulls up a chair. Ino hesitates because she hasn't bothered to re-paint the chipped corners of her nail polish. And her feet look like she had done laps on hot tar.

When she doesn't move fast enough, Sakura grabs her by an ankle and sits it on her lap.

"You're gonna get oil all over your kimono!" Ino whines, but Sakura unscrews the top and begins to dab the oil on Ino's feet.

"Stop protesting and let me help you!"

Ino leans back on her hands and lets out a gargle-like moan. She hadn't bothered to comb out yesterday's waves in her hair. Something had jumped inside of her this morning, prompting her to embrace a no-effort attitude. She had no appetite stepping out of her bed, threw her hair up in a tangled braid and picked the dullest of her three kimonos. Which isn't _too_ dull. It's plain only because she feels plain.

"So...what's going on between you and Shikamaru?" Sakura can't read minds. Ino frowns. Apparently she's seeping her energy out into the air for any and everyone to catch a whiff of like cat urine.

"Why?" Ino frowns at her.

"Last time I heard..."

"Who are you _hearing_ from?" This is the second time.

Sakura stops rubbing her foot and looks back at her in earnest. She sucks in her lips and thinks before she speaks, "Naruto. Obviously."

"Right...of course." Ino gives Sakura her other foot.

"We were all at the table, Ino..."

"Like one big happy family I bet." It had happened so long ago, she wonders why it still sits in the back of their minds. It isn't like she robbed anyone.

"I've just been waiting to ask."

"He's not my boyfriend if that's the answer you were searching for."

"I didn't think so."

"And what's that supposed to mean, Sakura?" Ino doesn't mean to raise her voice. She is grateful for someone wanting to soothe some damaged part of her. A shame it's the state of her crusty feet.

"I mean, considering he was engaged not too long ago—who would want that emotional baggage?" Sakura is the queen of subdued nosiness. She coats it with a real sweetness anyone would fall for. Ino allows herself to fall for it only because she is lonely.

"Some people are worth it. You of all people should understand that." Ino lowers her voice. Sakura rubs the last drop of oil into the cracks of skin, doesn't seem fazed by the statement.

"So you're admitting to something?" Sakura mumbles.

Ino hesitates. The intense need to cry all over again swells up in her chest, but she suppresses it. She taps her nails against the table and closes her eyes.

"You're so nosey." Ino sighs.

"I just wanted the truth from the source and not Naruto's imagination. Sai still doesn't talk about you at all."

"I wonder what he would say if he did." Ino says facetiously.

A pause. Sakura lets go of her foot and reaches for the bandages on the table. Ino straightens her back and readjusts the fold of her kimono.

"I was serious when I asked you to come to the hospital with me." Sakura begins to wrap up Ino's feet.

Ino doesn't respond, she just stares off into space.

"I think you've allowed a superficial anger or sadness to distort your own image of yourself." Sakura's fingers are like feathers.

"A superficial anger." Ino has never considered this.

"Yep. Don't let enough time pass or you will forget yourself."

"What would you know, Sakura?"

"I apparently know better than anyone else." Sakura's smile brightens. Ino's soul escapes her body.

The front door clicks and opens. They both crane their necks.

Sasuke steps inside and for a moment Ino forgets that he belongs here just as much as the fly running into closed windows. Her nose wrinkles up at the sight of him.

He mumbles a breathy 'hello' that sort of disrupts the air. The weight of his chakra causes the tiny hairs of her arms to stand. _It's been a while_ —that's what her body tells her.

Sakura gently brushes Ino's feet from her lap so that she might stand to greet him. She doesn't wobble nor has the disposition of someone who has been silently enduring neglect.

"Ino, you're the last person I expected to see." Sasuke allows Sakura to help him out of his jacket. She does so with a noticeable tenderness—with a fear that if she overwhelms him with too much attention, she'll damage and crack up all his hard spots.

There's a tough squeeze at Ino's heart, she doesn't know why they cause her to feel so melancholy.

_Maybe it's nostalgia._

"I never expect to see you either, Sasuke." Ino slides from the table, frowning at the pain when she applies too much pressure to her feet.

Sasuke smirks because there's no other way to respond to the truth. Sakura glares at Ino as she folds his jacket in her arms.

 _Some things are only meant to be silently understood_ —that's something Shikamaru would say.

"Don't miss the fireworks you two." Ino says absently, slipping her feet into her sandals.

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Suffering builds character.

If you can survive a war, you can survive anything. Time is the salve.

Shikamaru didn't have to stand a trial for his punishment. They didn't need to tell him what rule he broke. Sai ushered the ritual with no enthusiasm. They had carried Shino's body away and that was the end of _that_.

For his punishment, they dragged him out of his lightheadedness with cold water to his face. At least, that's the last thing he remembers before blacking out. The after smell of burnt wood and grass is what awakes him. Sunlight hurts his eyelids. He's brought back from temporary death with his arms and legs strung up to the trees that didn't collapse to the fire. The grass beneath him is black, still wafting traces of smoke.

Shikamaru hacks a dry cough. It feels like the balls of his joints are being tugged out of their sockets. His body had been coated in honey. The heat lifts the smell. Flies and light green bugs stick to him.

Someone had pitied him enough to bandage the bloody gash in his arm.

This is the time to think about what this all means. He should've asked Kakashi what he would stand to gain from this shit. Maybe the point is to beat a dog hard enough until it learns mean ugliness, but Shikamaru is sound enough, or so he thinks he is, to not be affected by this kind of abuse.

The longer he bakes in the sun, more bugs attach themselves to his sugary skin.

And then he starts to question...how many buzzes in his ear can he stand before he goes completely insane?

And the questioning stirs his appetite. The walls of his stomach want to cave in.

He watches his shadow change size to keep up with the time of day. _Time is salve_.

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Ino knew anger could be blind, even misplaced, but never thought to sit it next to superficial. A part of her wants to ignore any little insights Sakura might have but it only hurts because it's true. She can't exactly understand the chemistry to why it's true, she just knows how it feels and shoves a fist full of cotton candy in her mouth. Frowning at the shocking sweetness and the sugary residue that hardens at the corners of her lips.

Ino slumps forward on the bench, folding her feet together, the sand and dirt cake up on her sandals. The oil between her toes glues grit to her skin. As she tugs at more cotton candy, she realizes that Sakura has ghosted her for Sasuke. She chews faster as she thinks—this is her first Founder's Day alone.

No dad. No mom. Just her lonesome and loneliness. Tears puddle her vision, but _damn it_ she is surrounded by so many familiar faces. She shouldn't feel so isolated, but it grows for every kid with a proud parent and every person with a partner—whether it's a partner in crime or partner in life.

Before the war, there are gaps in her memory. She can't remember a single Founder's Day, yet she's just fully aware, on her lonesome, that her dad is gone and there isn't anyone to distract her with new memories to challenge the old ones that hide from her.

Ino looks up into the blood orange sky, wiping her tears with her knuckles. Her fingers are sticky with sugar. With her mind, through the power of her heart, she asks the mighty universe to chase away the irksome presence of her gloominess.

But it tells her to befriend this homesickness without a home. She'll be better off if she did.

Wisdom. She hates its persistence.

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The sky changes colors.

Shikamaru's stomach feels like it's eating itself.

A white shape flutters forward, gliding directly against his forehead with a soft tap. It falls down but sticks to his stomach. It's a piece of paper. Then two more papery butterflies float from various directions, pecking him on the sides of his face. They also crumble and die.

"Did you know today is Founder's Day?" Sai's voice sounds like it comes from every direction. Shikamaru closes his eyes and shrugs to the best of his ability. Sai waits for a response he doesn't have. All Shikamaru can think about is the acid in his stomach. The rest of his discomfort shrinks. No pain is worse than hunger and dehydration.

"I woke up and noticed how decorated everything is—I spent all of yesterday wondering why shops were filling up their windows with ornaments. It's so easy to lose track of time."

The paper dissolves into ink on Shikamaru's abdomen, seeping down the defined curve of his pelvic bone. He still doesn't dignify Sai with an answer.

Sai sits in a patch of healthy green grass with his legs crossed, sitting his sketchbook in his lap.

"I didn't want you to spend it alone."

"How thoughtful." Shikamaru rasps. The energy required to speak worsens his fatigue.

"When Kakashi gave me your file, I wanted to reject you." He draws more butterflies. Shikamaru absorbs the sound of his ink pen against the paper.

"I didn't want you to think I hated you." Sai goes on.

"Why would I think that?" Shikamaru's tongue feels like sand. He doesn't want to talk about Ino.

"You know why I would think that. There's no need to skirt around it."

"You're projecting, Sai."

"No. I'm attempting to apologize."

Shikamaru opens his eyes. It takes a minute to not see double. Sweat trickles down the cave of his eye socket, burning as it collects in his tear ducts.

"I don't know what you want me to say." Shikamaru spits onto the ground. The side of his mouth is scabbed.

"To be honest, I don't expect you to say anything. I just want to establish that I'm only following protocol. It's not personal." Sai sends forth another paper butterfly, it explodes into ink on contact with Shikamaru's arm.

"I wouldn't care if you did hold a grudge against me."

Sai smiles at that—he doesn't say anything else. He sits quietly, gently tossing up his pretty ink bombs and detonating them on various parts of Shikamaru's body. Sometimes a butterfly, sometimes a bird. After a while, he only drew shuriken.

Shikamaru stops feeling everything altogether. It becomes an unspoken game of how long he can endure it without convulsing.

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"Sometimes I forget how big the village is!" Naruto slides a grilled chunk of meat from a stick, digs his teeth into the texture, pulling it back slowly as if to savor the flavor, but he just looks ridiculous. Hinata taps a napkin on his cheek, rubbing away barbecue sauce.

They both slide next to Ino on the bench, and Naruto, grubby fingers and shiny with sweat, swats her on the back. The wooden bench creaks like it's not strong enough to support their weight.

"Long time no speak, Yamanaka!" He sings into her ear. Hinata leans around him to greet Ino with a bright smile. Her meek greeting is swallowed up by Naruto's loud burp.

"Hinata still hasn't house broken you—I don't think you can, girl. Divorce him while the ink is still wet." Ino shakes her head, pinching another clump of cotton candy.

Hinata gets out one word—an airy ' _But'_ , that Naruto clips with a thunderous cackle. He chokes on his own saliva and coughs. One good whiff of his breath and it's evident that's he's had at least one bottle of cheap beer. Hinata clings to him and brushes back his hair. There's a subtle stain of sauce on her chin as well.

Ino imagines that it's the outcome of a slobbery kiss and her ears turn red.

"Where is Sakura?" Hinata wears her hair pinned up like the step away from royalty that she is, no makeup and a kimono that looks like it's a year's worth of Ino's rent. She resists the urge to reach out and caress the fabric with her sticky fingers.

Their relationship used to bewilder her. It seemed to not only happen out of thin air, but it made perfect sense. Naruto is the type of guy any woman can get used to. The chubbiness of his face had smoothened out into his own distinct and bold features.

While Naruto is an every man for every woman, Hinata is only one woman made specifically for Naruto.

"Sasuke is back." Ino tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Sitting next to Hinata, she's put to shame.

"Hell no! And he didn't come to see me first!?" Naruto spits out crumbs.

"Yup, they stood us up, kiddo." Ino crosses her legs.

Scowling out at their decorated surroundings, Naruto swallows his meat without chewing.

"You wouldn't come to see me first, Naruto?" Hinata looks at him curiously. Her eyes shimmer, revealing a _secret_ cunning nature. Ino's neck begins to sweat with jealousy.

Naruto grumbles and slaps his chest to force the food down.

"Yea, yea. Sure. Of course I would, Hinata..."And it's that easy. Ino wonders how she convinces him to do the dishes without asking.

They go back and forth, Ino a nonparticipant in their conversation. Hinata will spot a detail, anticipating Naruto's opinion— from the village symbols on the lanterns to the funny shape of someone's head.

"The sun needs to hurry up and go down." Naruto groans.

And Hinata says, "The faster the sun goes down, the faster tomorrow comes."

"I don't want to get up early..." He rubs his belly and slumps closer to her shoulders.

"I don't want you to get up either."

Ino makes it her purpose to finish the cotton candy before her stomach flips. It takes all of her home training not to gag.

Something catches Naruto's attention and he shoots up, squinting between the hoards of people. He lowers his head and his mouth hangs open. Handing Hinata the last of his shish kabob, he sets off into the crowd without a word.

Hinata is unfazed like it's a normal occurrence. She helps herself to the rest of his food.

They don't speak for some time. Hinata wipes the grease from her fingers on her kimono and Ino grimaces.

"Ino." Hinata hiccups softly into her hand.

Ino clears her throat and pretends to not be flummoxed by the grease stain on Hinata's nice kimono.

"Yeah-huh." Ino wobbles the plastic stick covered in dried cotton candy goo between two fingers.

"Are you feeling better?" Hinata turns her head in Ino's direction. The color of her eyes, or the lack of, gives her an otherworldly appearance. She gets this strong feeling that Hinata is an old soul with a gaze that can splinter bone if you look back for too long.

Ino stops herself from completely falling prey to Hinata's charm. Loud acts of weakness aren't included in Ino's emotional catalogue.

"Not really." Ino draws a dirt circle on the ground with her foot. "But it's a new day."

"After you left she didn't speak nearly as much. I think she was embarrassed." Hinata finishes the shish kabob.

"Embarrassed of me?"

"Of you and herself—mostly herself. I'm almost certain."

"When did you get so blunt?" Ino laughs disbelievingly.

"I'm sorry..." Bursts of pink color Hinata's cheeks.

Ino gets up, but not the least bit offended. It's no secret to anyone in Konoha that for all of her beauty and skill, she is a directionless failure to her mother. Despite the fact that she knows the precise point of each main artery in the human body, she is nothing if she is not making her mark in history. Forget the war and the smell of blood she couldn't get out of her uniform.

_'What are you doing now to make yourself memorable, Ino?'_

Naruto stumbles from the thickening crowd with three candy apples.

"Oh no, Ino don't leave— I barely see you!" Naruto's eyes shift from Hinata to Ino. Hinata holds her head down with her lips in a straight line. She takes a candy apple from him.

"Make a habit out of buying your pretty wife some flowers and you'd see me more often." She smiles weakly.

"I'd like that..." Hinata mutters, peeling the plastic from the apple.

"Then it's decided!" He hands Ino the candy apple.

She hesitates because it's too much sugar in one day, but he gets her with his one man for every woman smile and she accepts it. It's the biggest apple she's ever seen, the stick wedged in the core is weak in comparison.

Akamaru appears seemingly out of nowhere, squeezing himself between Naruto and Ino to sit his head in Hinata's lap.

"Oh hell..." Naruto rasps to himself as he tugs the ribbon from the plastic of his candy apple. "For a dog so big, he has feet like a ghost."

"Ghosts don't use their feet, Naruto. They float." Hinata pets Akamaru. Ino hates the way they communicate with each other.

"Whatever." He drags his tongue over the thick red shell of sugar.

Two hands gently grab Ino's shoulders and she doesn't have to turn to know it's Kiba. He carefully moves her to the side as he steps between her and Naruto. A fox mask sits on his forehead, covering his eyebrows.

"The older he gets the more stubborn he becomes!" Kiba has the kind of laugh that shakes birds from trees. Naruto narrows his eyes and begins to sweat. Ino can almost taste the energy seeping from his pores. The wind collects it like tiny dust particles, so she knows Kiba must taste it too.

"Well you don't have much of any manners either, Kiba. I wonder where he gets it from." Hinata says matter-of-factly. Akamaru strains his neck to lick Hinata's candy apple. Kiba releases Ino's shoulders and gives her a quick smile of acknowledgement. He stands squarely between Naruto and Hinata. He's incredibly brusque in his stance. Naruto drops his candy apple as he avoids Kiba stepping on his foot.

The hard thump the apple makes against the ground kicks up a tiny cloud of dirt. Naruto's face pales.

"Ino, does it sound like she's accusing me of uncouthness? I definitely don't go around sniffing out women and shoving my face in their thighs!" Kiba looks at Ino and his smile widens.

Ino's bottom lip slowly drops in a quiver, but she sucks up the gasp, holds all the air in her mouth. Naruto's skin whitens. Something unseen to the naked eye exits his body. Ino just tosses her braid over her shoulder and takes the first bite of her apple.

Hinata blinks for a few minutes, eventually smiling. Akamaru takes his nose from her lap and begins to sniff at Naruto's lost apple.

"How are you gonna speak to my wife but not me, huh? What's your deal?" Naruto growls.

 _His wife_ —Ino sniffs and rolls her eyes.

Kiba turns to face Naruto. The sweat makes his skin shine. He pushes his mask back further, the sleeve of his yukata folding back. His mesh undershirt is frayed, some holes bigger than others.

"Hey, Naruto..." Kiba sheds his smile, but he doesn't lose the joyousness in his tone. There's also the possibility that he has been drinking. Ino makes a point not to get closer to find out. She presses her tongue against the candy sticking to the roof of her mouth.

"Naruto, he's just happy to see me!" Hinata can't or _won't_ stop giggling. Ino shakes her head.

"I just want the same energy is all!" Naruto shakes a little.

"Oh, I'm happy to see you too, Naruto. Even happier that she still thinks you're marriage material. I've been a little concerned..."

Naruto hooks his fingers in the mesh of Kiba's shirt and shakes him one good time with both of his hands. It's enough to bleach the color from Hinata's cheeks. She finally stands up. Ino wonders if this is the second or third time...

"I will stomp all your teeth out of your head if you don't apologize to me!" Naruto manages to alert the circle of people around them.

"What I got to be sorry for?" Kiba's face doesn't change. Ino realizes it was the good spirit of tranquility that left Naruto pale.

Unable to stomach the gossip that could reach her mother, Ino makes it her business to intervene. For the sake of poor sweaty Hinata and their reputations.

"C'mon guys, it's supposed to be about the food and fireworks." Ino steps between them, shoving away at Naruto's arms. Akamaru stops wagging his tail.

"I'm going to kill him before I'm thirty..." Naruto says to Hinata, pointing a finger.

"It's still about the food and fireworks." Kiba rubs his stomach.

"Can you shut the hell up please?" Ino grabs Kiba by the arm and tugs him away. Akamaru follows them into the crowd.

"He wasn't going to do shit." Kiba rubs his nose along his knuckles. Ino lets go of him when she thinks they've made it a good distance away from Naruto, who can still be heard choking insults into the air. "He's soft like putty around Hinata."

"What a master manipulator you are." Ino suddenly loses the desire to finish her candy apple. The sweetness makes her nauseous.

"It's just too easy." Kiba rubs the back of his head, and whistles away the tension in his muscles.

Ino catches her breath and eyes her apple pitifully. It suddenly becomes awkward when neither of them speak nor go their separate ways. They just savor the memory they have just made together. Akamaru whines and Kiba gives him an ' _Oh really'_ expression.

"Well..." Ino begins.

"Ino, did you come out here all by yourself?" Kiba shakes his head at Akamaru's silent thought.

"Not on purpose—Sakura stood me up for a boy." She shrugs, looking down at her feet. The sky had darkened and the lantern-drawn shadows intensify

"No ShikaCho?" He laughs.

Ino has no idea where Shikamaru could be and has tried her hardest not to think about him. Choji is wherever the food stands are in abundance.

"We aren't kids anymore." She shrugs again, acutely aware of how he gazes at her.

"No but it's still weird not seeing you guys together."

"Contrary to popular belief, Ino, Shika, and Cho aren't extensions of each other."

"I guess it's normal to grow out of friendships." He chews his bottom lip.

"None of us really has anything in common other than history." Ino huffs, knowing good and damn well its ninety eight percent a lie. She blushes thinking of the hickeys Shikamaru has given her collar bone.

"I can believe that. That's part of being an adult. Growing up and apart..." He pauses and keeps his mouth open. Ino stops staring at the ground and looks back him, trying not to appear so knowing.

"Choji is still a good guy. Shikamaru...eehhh..." He shakes his hand.

"What's wrong with Shikamaru?" She's curious if it's something she doesn't know about. It has always bothered her that Shikamaru has a clean rapport.

"He's got no sense of humor." Kiba wrinkles his nose, recalling a memory Ino will never be privy to.

"That's not true at all." She sucks her teeth.

"I don't think I've ever seen him smile and he's so short when you talk to him."

"You only feel that way because he's not intimidated by you." Ino smirks.

"No! That's definitely not what it is!" Kiba retorts gruffly.

"That's exactly what it is. You can't just puff your chest and stomp your feet to get a reaction out of him." Aside from Temari, she can happily say that she is one of the two people that can upset Shikamaru Nara. It's gratifying. Too bad she's second place.

"You think that's what I do? Walk around like an ugly bear and snap at people?" He's not the least bit slighted.

Ino stomps a foot at him and jabs two fingers in his chest. "The ugliest damn bear in the whole wide world!"

"That's pretty damn ugly!" His laugh comes straight from his gut.

"Down right atrocious." Ino hesitantly licks the candy apple once more to decide if she still wants it. She really doesn't.

"Watch the fireworks with me and Akamaru," He says bluntly. It punctuates a short silence from Ino. She gapes at him and licks the stickiness of her lips.

"Ask me politely first." She holds his stare.

"I don't see why not. You're alone."

"Ask me."

Akamaru makes a noise of protest and Kiba's nostrils twitch. Rolling his tongue against his cheek, he lowers his lids.

"Ino."

"Yes." She flutters her lashes, sharpens the pitch of her voice.

"Will you watch the fireworks with me?" Kiba submits with a lot of effort. His shoulders fall like he had to physically drag it from his soul.

Her anger with Shikamaru is still fresh—it could be a 'superficial anger', but that doesn't make it hurt any less. Pain has been the way they've communicated. The feeling of a knife twisting its way through flesh to touch bone, it's really how they started. Parts of her body tingle.

"Please?" Kiba's face softens.

Would watching the fireworks with Kiba hurt Shikamaru's feelings if he knew? She imagines him coolly accepting it with a rage so quiet, it sucks the heat from her skin.

"Yes. I would love to watch the fireworks with you, Kiba."

 _So now we're even_ —Ino confronts the imaginary Shikamaru that takes up space in her heart.

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At some point, Shikamaru had slipped into unconsciousness. Pain—he can't feel it anymore. Night time happened so suddenly, he thinks he's dead when he opens his eyes to a blanket blackness. Sai had left. He's going to be here another night or two.

The fireworks disrupt his morbid line of thought. He is not dead. A shower of green lights up the forest. Then a rainbow eruption chases away the spots of darkness in between explosions.

 _'How do you say goodbye to the dead? They can't hear you...'_ Choji had whispered in his ear. They both watched Ino bury the shoebox with a plastic shovel. Shikamaru remembers the barrettes struggling to hold down her hair.

The fireworks color their ghostly bodies like he isn't hallucinating, but watching a moment in real time.

 _'Ino, this is dumb. You could've just flushed him down the toilet instead of dragging us out here.'_ Shikamaru grumbled. ' _For all we know, fish might not even have souls._ '

He doesn't feel that way now. It's hard to believe he ever felt that way.

Ino stood and stomped her feet. Her large eyes sparkled with tears. It's distinct in the darkness. _'You're a heartless stupid dumb moron! Fish do have souls!'_

 _'Why can't fish go to heaven, Shikamaru?'_ Choji never could handle Ino's tears.

The apparitions lose their colors, turning into simple shadows at the last fade of fireworks.

He is wide awake now.

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Ino doesn't care about the fireworks. After the first three colorful explosions they all begin to look the same. Kiba doesn't care about the fireworks either. It was never about the fireworks in the first place. After the first shot in the sky of green, he watches her the entire time from two steps below. Ino keeps her eyes in the sky.

Akamaru isn't too ecstatic about her presence. She is stealing time that belongs to him. Every now and then, a soft growl rumbles his belly.

"Ino, I'm sorry about your mom."

"Not like I asked to be born, right...?"

She drops her attention from the yellow sparks in the sky to look at him. Kiba's sudden intensity sort of startles her. He turns away and chugs his bottle of root beer.

"It ruined the rest of the day, but it was doomed from the start. I don't know why Kurenai lets them cluck around her and Mirai like chickens." The food was good though, so he couldn't really complain.

"Lonely people do lonely things." Ino would know.

"What have you been up to though?" he asks. It's a normal question, yet it bothers her. Rubbing her shoulders, she recoils a bit, unsure how to really answer aloud. He notices the shift in her demeanor. She shudders knowing he knows the exact scent of her anxiety. Another person she can't hide anything from.

"I've been up to absolutely nothing," she says softly. A loud pop showers their little world in a fading glow of red.

"That's not true," he wheezes.

"It's the whole truth and nothing but the truth." She props her chin on knuckles.

He doesn't know what else to say. They've never had anything in common—Ino has never had to hold much a conversation with him. She could ask him what he's been up to lately as well but it feels too inviting.

"You've got good timing, Kiba." She leans back against the stairs.

"Some would argue with you about that..." He wipes his mouth against his wrist. The brown bottle glitters from within as another shot of multiple colors spray the sky.

"You saved me from an awkward social situation, so thank you."

"Oh yea—Naruto and Hinata make me dry heave. Hinata can do better..."

"I stopped riding the Naruto hate train years ago, you should too—"

"I did, but I still think she settled." Kiba lifts the bottle to his mouth again and it looks like he's drinking green, red, and yellow stars.

"And who would've been better than Naruto? You?"

He laughs and strangles on his root beer, but Ino is gravely serious. There's a brief pause in conversation. Kiba continues to smile, but she can tell he's sifting through multiple thoughts.

"You're welcome" is what he decides to say first and then, "I should really be thanking you."

"For what?" She rubs the back of her ear.

"I get to watch the fireworks with one of the prettiest girls in the village."

Ino sticks out her tongue and gags, but she'd be delusional if she doesn't acknowledge that it fed her ego. Kiba really does have perfect timing or vulnerability smells terribly sweet like honey.

"You're gonna run me off if you keep that up." She blushes like it's the first time she's ever heard it.

"If the truth makes you run, then so be it." He shrugs.

For some very odd reason, that stuns her. She just accepts it for what it is. Though he managed to be completely transparent, he doesn't look at her. She can't recall Kiba ever being physically unattractive—but she sees that he's grown into his features. He'd completely lost all of his baby fat.

"I guess I'm running." She gets up and descends the stairs. He reaches for her hand, fingers coiling around her tiny wrist so that she doesn't trip. It's pure instinct. His touch is hot, but it could be her mind playing tricks. All bodies with a steady heart beat are warm.

At the last step, their hands lock and neither of them make the effort to break the contact. Ino does make a point to not look at him directly.

"Can I walk you home?"

"No."

"Why not?" His smile fades.

"Because if you do, you'll invite yourself inside and won't leave." She lets go of his hand and takes the last step down.

"Is that a bad thing?" He gets a serious look that causes all of her covered skin to sweat. Yet she has enough sense to know that it's not a good thing to revel in. This is what loneliness looks like—mouth watering for temporary cravings for attention.

"Don't stay up too late and don't get into any trouble." Ino leaves it at that. She doesn't even have to hold her breath because he doesn't bother to chase her.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm trying to stay consistent with the updates. Once a month isn't a tall order. I think it's reasonable too. This took a different turn and I hope I won't lose anyone along the way. I'm a little beside myself. I wrote this a year ago with no intention of making it multiple chapters and HERE WE ARE eight whole chapters later with a plot. One day I'm going to give y'all the romance you deserve. Thanks a million times over again for sticking around since the inception of this soap opera. I hope I haven't let anyone down.


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